THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


THE 

GOOD   SHEPHERD 


BY 


"In  dem  schoenen  Land  Tyrol, 

In  Tyrol,  in  Tyrol. 
Ach,  wie  ist  mir  denn  so  wohl, 
In  Tyrol,  im  Land  Tyrol." 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


9 


Third  Printing 


January,  1915 


TO 

MY  FATHER 


2138226   ' 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


CHAPTER  I 

"VERY  satisfactory,  Kurtz."  The  Professor  lifted  his 
head  from  the  microscope  and  blinked  at  his  laboratory- 
servant,  who  stood  waiting  by  the  door.  "This  last 
slide's  specially  good."  He  bent  over  the  instrument 
again.  Then,  as  Kurtz  did  not  move,  he  asked :  "Well ? 
Anyone  to  see  me?" 

' '  Yes,  sir.     The  '  Herr  Mister. '  ' 

"Who?"  Professor  Schroeder  rubbed  his  tired  eyes 
and  put  on  his  glasses. 

"The  American.  The  'Herr  Mister.'  Everybody 
calls  him  that.  His  name's  too  hard  to  pronounce." 

Kurtz  ran  his  fingers  through  the  long  yellow  beard 
that  framed  in  his  impassive  features  and  fell  over 
his  white  hospital  tunic.  In  the  operating-theater  or 
in  the  laboratory  of  the  Surgical  Clinic,  he  was  like 
some  stately  Teutonic  priest  presiding  over  strange  sacri- 
fices. 

"It's  about  that  job  in  the  laboratory,"  he  added. 
' '  He  '11  be  wanting  that. — But  I  'm  thinking  we  wouldn  't 
work  well  together,  Herr  Professor. — Oh,  he  knows 
enough ! ' ' 

"Too  much,  perhaps?  I've  a  lot  of  his  latest  slides 
here,  and  they're  quite  unusually  perfect." 

"He's  all  for  working  in  paraffine,"  protested  Kurtz. 
' '  Paraffine !  And  me  using  nothing  but  celloidin  for 
twenty  years!  The  Herr  Professor  knows  my  work. 
Besides, — them  foreigners " 

"He's  almost  the  only  one  we've  got.  This  isn't 
Vienna.  Show  him  in." 

I 


2          THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Kurtz  opened  the  outer  door  of  the  Professor's  private 
room  and  beckoned  with  one  stained  finger.  Then  he 
withdrew  softly,  leaving  the  new-comer  standing  in  front 
of  the  Professor's  table. 

"Sit  down — sit  down,  Herr  Kollega,"  said  Schroeder. 

He  was  peering  into  the  microscope  again;  but  he 
did  not  see  much  of  the  slide  that  lay  under  the  power- 
ful immersion-lens,  for  he  felt  exceedingly  ill  at  ease. 
He  was  a  kind-hearted,  very  shy  man,  and  he  hated 
disagreeable  interviews. 

Several  moments  passed  in  silence.  Then  he  realized 
that  there  was  no  escape  possible;  he  must  say  some- 
thing. 

He  put  on  his  glasses  again,  and  looked  across  his 
desk  at  the  American,  a  tall  man  with  a  slight  stoop, 
whose  sensitive  mouth  was  at  war  with  the  clean-cut 
outlines  of  his  square  jaw,  and  into  whose  slaty-green 
eyes  the  Professor  could  never  look  without  a  sense  of 
discomfort.  Those  eyes  were  fixed  on  him  now.  He 
avoided  them,  and  saw  that  the  hand  that  rested  on 
the  edge  of  his  desk  was  trembling. 

' '  I  have  to  thank  you  for  those  last  preparations, ' '  he 
began.  Then,  catching  at  a  straw,  "But  you  don't  look 
well.  Overworked,  I'm  sure:  and  no  wonder.  Even 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  things  a  medical  student's 
brain  is  strained  to  the  utmost,  and  you  do  all  sorts  of 
extra  duty  besides.  Now  that  the  semester  is  over,  you 
should  rest." 

"I'm  not  tired,  sir,"  the  other  answered.  His  voice 
was  hard  and  defiant. 

The  Professor  stood  up,  and  laid  a  hand  on  his 
shoulder. 

"But  you  are  tiring,  my  young  friend. — Getting  near 
the  line  where  tiredness  begins.  Stop  before  you  get 
there.  That's  my  advice." 

The  American's  lips  parted  in  a  smile.  He  was  like 
a  man  constantly  in  arms  against  misfortune,  but  whom 
kindness  strips  of  his  armor,  leaving  him  defenseless 
and  off  his  guard. 

"But  I  want  to  work,   Herr  Professor,"   he   said. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD         3 

"That's  why  I'm  bothering  you  this  morning.  I 
thought,  perhaps,  Kurtz  had  told  you  that  I  was  intend- 
ing to  apply  for — for " 

"Yes,  yes, — I  know.  That  place  as  laboratory- 
demonstrator."  Schroeder  saw  no  way  out  now,  and 
plunged  bravely  into  an  explanation  that  he  knew  must 
be  painful.  "But  I  need  someone  at  once;  and  you 
really  look  so  done  up  that  I  hesitate  to " 

"I  could  begin  to-morrow,  Herr  Professor.  I've 
brought  my  papers." 

"But  I  couldn't  think  of  taking  advantage  of  your 

goodwill  in  so  selfish  a  manner.  You  see,  I — that  is, — 
j " 

Again  he  stammered,  and  tugged  awkwardly  at  his 
short  gray  beard. 

The  American's  right  hand,  that  had  drawn  a  sheaf 
of  papers  from  an  inner  pocket,  stopped  and  mechani- 
cally replaced  them.  The  smile  faded  from  his  lips. 

' '  Herr  Professor  thinks,  then,  that  I  had  better  not  put 
in  my  application.  I  understand — quite." 

"No  you  don't, — indeed  you  don't,"  interposed 
Schroeder,  growing  more  nervous  and  unhappy  with 
every  moment.  "It's  got  nothing  to  do  with  you  at  all, 
personally. — So  far  as  I'm  concerned.  But  you  know 
Kurtz,  our  head-servant.  He's  been  with  me  twenty 
years.  I  could  never  replace  him.  You  know,  too,  how 
handy  he  is.  What  really  brilliant  technical  work  he 
does.  And  if  he  and  my  assistants  don't  get  on  together, 
— why,  I — I'm  put  in  a  very  unpleasant  position.  An- 
other servant  like  Kurtz  I  should  never  find ;  but  a  suit- 
able assistant  I  can  pick  up  any  day.  So,  for  the  sake  of 
peace,  I  've  always  let  my  assistants  go,  when  there 's  been 
any  friction  between  Kurtz  and  themselves.  They're 
usually  quite  young  men, — often  students  not  yet  quali- 
fied. I  can  turn  them  off  without  hurting  them  much, 
or  feeling  uncomfortable  myself.  But,  you  see, — you, — 
you  're  somewhat  of  a  scientific  man.  I  don 't  know  what 
your  American  degree  in  medicine  represents;  but  I've 
seen  the  work  you've  done  here  in  these  last  four  years, 
and  I Why,  you  wouldn't  stand  it  for  a  week. 


4          THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Making  sections  by  the  wholesale  for  theoretical  courses : 
explaining  elementary  matters  to  stupid  students,  or 
looking  after  the  instruments  in  the  operating-theater. 
It  would  be  like  using  a  spirited  Arab  steed  to  draw  a 
coal-cart. ' ' 

Then,  distressed  by  a  new  point  of  view,  which  threat- 
ened to  make  the  interview  still  more  embarrassing,  he 
added — 

"Or  do  you — do  you  need — the — the  remuneration 
so  badly?  If  so, — perhaps, — if  you  would  allow  me, — 
I  might " 

The  American  stood  up  abruptly.  His  face  was  set 
and  hard  once  more — on  guard  again  against  misfortune. 

' '  Herr  Professor  is  far  too  kind, ' '  he  said,  with  a  stiff 
little  bow.  "I  shall  not  starve. — It  isn't  the  money  I 
want;  it's  the  work.  Of  course  you  may  say,  'Well, 
then,  work  at  your  books,  or  in  the  laboratory,  or  the 
operating-room,  with  the  other  men.'  That's  all  well 
enough.  I  do  that  so  long  as  the  semester  lasts.  But, 
now  that  lectures  and  courses  are  over,  I  want  some- 
thing,— some  work,  that  I've  got  to  do.  Don't  you  see, 
sir,  I  haven't  will-power  enough  to  make  work  for  my- 
self,— all  alone  in  my  own  room,  or  alone  now  in  the 
laboratories.  I  need  a  job  that  makes  the  work  for 
me;  even  if  it's  only  cutting  sections  or  rolling  up 
bandages.  I — I  want  work.  That's  all.  Work  that 
makes  me  so  dog-tired  that  I  don't  lie  awake  at  nights 
and  think." 

He  picked  up  his  hat  and  hurried  towards  the  door. 
Here  he  faced  about,  clicked  his  heels  together,  and  made 
the  astonished  Professor  the  customary  reverence. 

"Ich  habe  die  Ehre,  Herr  Professor."1 

"Ich  habe  die  Ehre,  Herr  Kollega." 

Then,  interrupting  himself  in  the  midst  of  this  me- 
chanical formula,  Schroeder  hurried  after  his  depart- 
ing visitor. 

"No,  no,  you  mustn't  go  like  this.  It  won't  do,  my 
dear  boy, — won't  do  at  all."  He  took  the  American  by 

i  "I  have  the  honor,"  that  is,  "to  wish  you  good-day."  The 
usual  shortened  form  of  salutation  among  men  in  Austria. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD          5 

the  shoulders  and  shook  him  reprovingly.  "Nerves — 
overworked — breakdown.  We  can't  have  that.  Go  off 
somewhere  and  take  a  rest.  Skip  a  semester, — this  com- 
ing summer-semester,  if  you  like.  What  good  would 
you  be  in  the  operating-room  with  a  hand  like  that? 
Get  it  firm  and  steady.  Then  come  back  to  me  and  I'll 
give  you  work:  not  tread-mill  work  either.  You  helped 
us  last  summer,  didn't  you,  in  our  out-patient  depart- 
ment?— Well,  you  can  do  that  again.  And  once  you've 
got  your  Austrian  degree  and  I  can  legally  allow  you  to 
operate,  I'll  find  a  place  for  you  somehow. — Until  you 
want  to  go  home.  .  .  .  Why  don't  you  go  home  for  the 
summer?" 

The  Professor  stopped  short.  Something  leaped  up 
in  the  depths  of  the  other's  eyes  and  made  him  uncom- 
fortable. 

"Journey  too  long,  I  expect,"  he  added  gruffly. 

The  American  said  nothing.  It  was  very  embarrass- 
ing. Professor  Schroeder  walked  back  towards  his 
microscope. 

"Herr  Professor,"  said  the  American's  voice  at  last 
from  the  doorway,  "I  must  work  three  semesters  more 
before  I  can  come  up  for  my  degree.  A  year  and  a  half. 
That's  a  very  long  time.  A  lot  of  days, — and  nights. 
But  I'll  do  my  best.  I'll " 

A  door,  communicating  with  the  neighboring  room, 
opened  suddenly  and  a  youngish-looking  man  hurried 
in.  Between  his  fingers  he  held  a  number  of  test-tubes, 
sealed  with  wads  of  cotton-wool. 

"Got  'em  this  time,"  he  cried.  "Just  look  at  this 
culture ! ' ' 

Then,  noticing  the  American's  presence,  he  stopped 
impatiently  and  made  a  slight  bow  in  his  direction.  The 
American  stiffened ;  he  bowed  to  both  professors. 

"Ich  habe  die  Ehre,  Herr  Professor  ..." 

"Hab'  die  Ehre,"  nodded  Schroeder  with  a  smile. 

" — die  Ehre,"  added  the  younger  man  carelessly  over 
his  shoulder  while  lifting  one  of  his  test-tubes  towards 
the  light. 

"Do  come  and  look  at  this,"  he  said,  as  the  door  closed 


6          THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

on  the  American.  "That'll  make  our  kind  enemies  sit 
up,  I  take  it.  Serve  'em  right  for  the  way  they  treated 
your  work  so  many  years  ago.  Now  they'll  have  to  eat 
their  words.  I'll  see  to  that." 

But  the  elder  man  did  not  respond.  He  stood  at  the 
window  looking  out  on  the  garden  that  surrounded  the 
Surgical  Clinic,  where  the  patients  in  their  hideous  red- 
and-white-striped  dressing-gowns  were  passing  to  and 
fro.  The  sun  struck  in  through  the  high  window-panes 
and  flooded  the  room  with  radiance.  Schroeder  held 
out  his  hand  so  that  the  light  fell  directly  upon  it. 

"And  he's  in  the  shadow,"  he  said  out  loud. 

"In  heaven's  name,  what's  wrong?"  demanded  the 
other.  Laying  his  test-tubes  carefully  on  the  desk,  he 
came  hurrying  across  to  the  window.  His  voice  soft- 
ened. "You're  not  unwell,  are  you?  Come,  you  might 
tell  me." 

The  Professor  turned  suddenly,  slipped  his  arm 
through  that  of  his  companion,  and  walked  with  him 
back  to  the  table. 

"Doesn't  the  light  bother  you?"  asked  the  other. 
"Shall  I  pull  down  the  blind?" 

"No,  no. — I  like  it.  We're  in  the  sun,  you  see, — 
you  and  I." 

"The  confounded  sun  will  ruin  my  cultures.  And 
where  will  all  our  work  be  then?  I  thought  you'd  be 
so  interested  to  see  what  I'd  got  at,  and  now  you're 
not  paying  the  slightest  attention  to  a  word  I'm  say- 
ing." 

"The  cultures  will  keep  for  a  few  moments,"  an- 
swered the  Professor,  smiling  up  into  the  other's  disap- 
pointed face.  "No,  I'm  not  ill  either.  I've  been  think- 
ing backwards  a  little,  that's  all.  Hans,  how  old  were 
you  when  I  married  your  sister?" 

"How  old?  Why,  let's  see.  It  was  my  last  year  at 
the  Gymnasium.  I  was  nineteen.  Lucy  must  have  been 
twenty-five. ' ' 

' '  Bit  of  a  risk,  wasn  't  it  ? "  nodded  the  Professor.  ' '  I 
mean,  my  marrying  a  woman  so  much  younger  than  my- 
self. But  we  haven't  done  ourselves  so  badly,  have 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD          7 

we?  Five  years  for  your  medical  studies  at  the  Uni- 
versity; three  more  as  my  assistant.  Then  your  book, 
that  made  you  'Privat-Dozent.'  And  now,  you're 
assistant-professor  at  thirty-five.  Not  a  bad  record. 
And  Lucy  has  been  happy,  I  think.  If  only— 

"Never  mind,"  interposed  the  other  gently.  ''Chil- 
dren aren't  always  a  blessing." 

"And  I  have  you." 

The  old  man's  face  brightened.  He  went  to  the  win- 
dow, stood  in  the  sunlight,  and  spoke  over  his  shoulder 
as  if  half  ashamed  of  himself. 

"  'Tisn't  every  man  in  my  position  who  has  a  brother- 
in-law,  a  son,  and  an  heir  to  his  dearest  scientific  work 
all  rolled  into  one.  In  the  old  days  I  was  always  too 
busy  as  a  surgeon  to  go  hunting  for  technical  proofs  of 
my  various  theories.  How  I  was  laughed  at  then !  An 
unpractical  dreamer.  So  people  used  to  call  me." 

"They  won't  laugh  now.  It's  a  big  chance  this  offer 
of  Carrel's  to  take  on  those  two  chapters  of  his  new 
book.  And  I'll  show  the  whole  world  what  a  genius 
you  were  to  get  at  all  you  did  so  many  years  ago.  Good 
Lord,  it  will  be  a  treat.  I'll  make  the  idiots  lick  your 
boots." 

"We'll  spare  them  that."  The  old  man  turned 
briskly  from  the  window,  settling  his  glasses  firmly  on 
his  nose  with  a  gesture  of  finality.  "By  the  way,  does 
Lucy  really  want  to  go  to  Liebenegg  for  Easter?  It 
will  be  very  cold  there." 

"She's  tired  of  Innsbruck,  she  says.  Wants  to  get 
into  the  country.  I'd  like  a  few  mountain-climbs  my- 
self. I'm  somewhat  over-trained.  Then,  Aunt  Ellie, — 
you  know,  mother's  younger  sister  who  married  an 
American, — she's  asked  Lucy  to  do  something  for  a 
friend  of  hers  who's  been  spending  the  winter  in  Italy. 
Lucy  thought  of  inviting  her  to  Liebenegg. ' '  He  looked 
down  at  Professor  Schroeder,  who  was  holding  a  test- 
tube  listlessly  between  his  fingers.  "You  can't  see  the 
culture  at  all  if  you  hold  it  like  that.  What  is  up  with 
you  this  morning?  What  started  you  thinking  about 
Lucy,  and — and  me  ? " 


8         THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"Sun  and  shadow.  That  poor  fellow  who  was  here 
with  me  when  you  came  in.  The  American.  We're 
in  the  sun,  aren't  we?  You  and  I  and  the  wife.  While 
he What  do  you  know  about  him  anyway?" 

Assistant-Professor  Egger  grew  impatient.  He  had 
important  work  to  do,  and  his  chief  insisted  on  wasting 
time  on  such  insignificant  matters.  He  answered 

sharply. 

"Nothing  much.  And  there  are  three  major  opera- 
tions waiting  for  you  this  minute." 

"I  know.  I'll  change  at  once. — Don't  go."  The 
Professor  slipped  out  of  his  coat,  and  dragged  from  a 
closet  the  white  duck  trousers  and  the  white  tunic  that 
he  wore  in  the  Clinic.  "But  you  might  answer  my 
question.  Didn't  he  work  with  you  last  year?" 

' '  The  American  ? — Yes.  All  summer.  He  came  every 
day  and  made  the  eight  o'clock  visit  in  the  wards  with 
me.  The  assistant-in-charge  used  to  let  him  bandage 
and  do  odd  jobs.  He's  very  quick  with  his  fingers. 
Doesn't  seem  to  hurt  the  patients  much." 

"Anesthetic  hands.     Well,  anything  else?" 

"Oh  yes, — one  curious  thing.  He's  a  tremendous 
woman-hater.  To  give  him  experience  I  changed  him, 
in  the  usual  course  of  our  routine,  into  another  ward, — 
the  Septic  Women.  At  first  he  came  regularly.  But 
after  a  week  he  stopped  coming.  Said  he  couldn  't  stand 
it.  Couldn't  look  at  the  patients  objectively, — as  mere 
cases,  you  know.  Yet  the  women  liked  him;  were  quite 
strangely  interested  in  him,  in  fact.  And  he  couldn't 
abide  'em.  Funny." 

The  Professor  whirled  round,  his  tunic  half  buttoned. 

"Not  at  all,  not  at  all. — Not  a  woman-hater  at  all. 
It's  because  he  feels  too  strongly.  Women  attract  him 
so  that  he's  afraid. — Afraid.  That's  it.  Now  I  under- 
stand. He  has  been  hurt;  badly  hurt.  And  he  goes 
in  fear  of  getting  hurt  in  the  same  place  again.  It's 
cancer-patients  he  makes  me  think  of.  I  couldn 't  place 
it  before.  Cancer-patients,  who  have  had  an  operation, 
and  who  aren't  yet  sure  that  the  malignant  growth  has 
been  entirely  removed.  They're  always  waiting  for  a 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD          9 

fresh  attack  of  the  old  pain,  knowing  just  where  it  will 
hurt,  wondering  when  it's  coming,  and  sometimes  hop- 
ing that  it  won't  come  at  all.  But  they  don't  dare  to 
hope  much.  So  they  live  in  terror." 

"Perhaps  he  has  got  something  wrong  with  him.  At 
any  rate  he  challenges  female  curiosity.  Even  Lucy 
got  to  bothering  me  about  him ;  once  she  'd  happened  to 
see  him  in  the  Clinic.  She  actually  wrote  to  Aunt  Ellie 
in  St.  Louis.  Thought  she  might  know  something  about 
the  chap's  family." 

"She  ought  not  to  have  done  that."  The  old  man's 
voice  vibrated  with  distress.  "We  have  no  right  to  pry. 
You  never  can  tell  what  a  letter  like  that  may  set  going. 
I  must  speak  to  Lucy.  Remind  me." 

"Don't  worry.  She  won't  let  him  come  to  any  harm. 
She  says  he's  the  kind  of  a  man  that  every  woman 
wants  to  protect.  He  makes  them  all  sorry  for  him — 
somehow.  I  suppose  it's  because  he  has  such  a  way 
with  children.  Would  have  with  the  women,  too,  if  he  'd 
let  himself  go.  You'd  be  interested  to  watch  him  in 
the  children's  ward.  There's  a  little  gutter-snipe  there 
now — a  factory  kid.  A  big  weight  fell  on  him  in  the 
machine  shop.  Dislocated  two  vertebra.  We  put  him 
in  extension, — a  big  tug  at  his  feet, — bigger  one  at  his 
head.  And  he  lay  there  and  screamed.  It  got  on  every- 
body's  nerves  at  last.  I  skipped  out.  An  hour  later 
when  I  turned  up  again — the  ward  was  quiet.  And  the 
American  was  sitting  by  the  imp's  bedside,  holding  his 
grimy  paw  in  one  hand,  and  with  the  other  setting  up 
tin-soldiers  on  the  kid's  chest.  The  boy  was  in  lots 
of  pain,  too.  Sweat  ran  off  him  in  streams.  But  he 
grinned — now  and  then.  Yes,  he  did." 

"You  can't  do  that,  Hans.  I  think  I  could  have — 
once." 

"I've  better,  more  important  things  to  do.  Do  you 
know  what  his  nickname  is  in  the  Clinic?  An  assist- 
ant once  pointed  him  out  to  me  in  a  corner  of  the 
garden.  Two  cases  of  coxitis  were  playing  on  the 
ground  at  his  feet;  a  nasty  scrofulous  spondylitis  was 
leaning  on  his  knee;  and,  looking  over  his  shoulder  or 


10        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

crowding  together  on  his  lap  were  three  or  four  other 
charming  specimens — girls  and  boys — fractures,  tuber- 
culosis, septic  cases — the  maimed  and  the  halt  and  the 
mangled.  It  looked  just  like  a  picture  out  of  a  cheap 
Family  Bible.  I  said  as  much  to  the  assistant.  'Yes,' 
said  he,  with  a  chuckle,  'we  call  him  "The  Good  Shep- 
herd." '  Aren't  you  going  to  look  at  my  cultures  after 
all?" 

The  Professor  smoothed  down  the  front  of  his  white 
tunic. 

"Later,  Hans.     Those  operations  are  waiting." 

"Confound  it!  The  cultures  won't  be  half  so  fine 
in  a  few  hours'  time.  It's  all  the  fault  of  that  idiotic 
American.  I  wish  he  and  the  like  of  him  'd  stay  at 
home.  And  so  they  would  if  there  wasn't  something 
wrong  with  'em  all  somewhere.  Just  look  at  this  par- 
ticular one.  His  eyes,  I  mean.  It's  as  if  he'd  been 
given  a  peep  into  hell  and  couldn't  forget  it." 

"Hans,"  said  the  Professor  softly,  his  hand  on  the 
younger  man's  shoulder,  "he's  looking  into  hell  all  the 

time.  That's  the  reason  I But  what's  the  matter 

with  your  thumb?" 

"Oh,  nothing  much,"  interposed  the  other,  hastily 
gathering  up  his  precious  test-tubes;  "I  got  a  bit  poi- 
soned yesterday  at  a  'post-mortem.' — A  septic  case  we 
lost  last  week.  Of  course  I  had  to  go  poking  my  nose  into 
it,  and  scratched  my  thumb  on  a  ragged  rib.  I  had  a 
touch  of  fever  last  night.  But  the  swelling  has  gone 
down.  It  '11  be  all  right  in  a  day  or  so.  And  I  'm  wear- 
ing gloves  in  the  laboratory.  Do  come  along.  I  must 
get  my  cultures  back  into  the  thermostat  or  they'll  be 
utterly  ruined." 


CHAPTER  II 

As  the  American  passed  the  lodge  that  guarded  the 
main  entrance  to  the  whole  complex  of  hospital  build- 
ings, the  fat  Bohemian  porter  thrust  a  letter  into  his 
hand.  The  American  glanced  at  it  without  interest. 
His  personal  letters  were  never  left  at  the  lodge.  This 
was  merely  some  circular  or  medical  advertisement. 
The  address,  however,  seemed  to  amuse  him.  It  was 
always  a  mystery  to  him  why  his  name  should  have 
become  such  a  stone  of  stumbling  to  everyone  who  tried 
to  use  it.  This  cheap  greenish  envelope  was  addressed 
to— 

"Dem  Herrn  Mister  Edwards-Southerlands,  Charles." 

His  name  happened  to  be  Charles  Southerland  Ed- 
wards. 

But  if  you  had  asked  people  in  Innsbruck  for  Herr 
Edwards  they  would  not  have  known  whom  you  meant. 
Letters  directed  to  "Mr.  Edwards"  would  have  been 
returned  to  the  sender;  just  as  the  famous  French 
communication  addressed  to  "M.  le  Maire,  Innsbruck," 
was  returned  by  the  postal  authorities,  with  the  remark 
that  there  were  plenty  of  "Mayers"  and  "Meiers"  in 
Innsbruck,  but  no  "Mayer"  who  spelt  his  name 
"Maire." 

Unfortunately,  the  "cultivated  classes"  of  the  little 
University  town  had  once  studied  English  history,  and 
many  of  them  remembered  ' '  Edwards "  as  a  royal  name, 
a  Christian  name.  They  supposed  that  in  writing  him- 
self "C.  Southerland  Edwards,"  the  American  had 
adopted  the  common  local  custom  of  putting  the  Chris- 
tian name  last.  So  all  those  who  prided  themselves  on 
their  knowledge  of  English  called  the  young  man 
1 '  Mister  Suuu-der-landt. ' '  But  after  all  they  were  few : 
mostly  junior  professors  and  their  strenuous  wives, 


12        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

And  yet  had  you  asked  almost  anyone  for  the  "Herr 
Mister"  you  would  have  had  no  difficulty  in  finding 
your  way  to  the  small  room,  opposite  the  hospital,  where 
Edwards  had  lived  and  worked,  and  where  he  had  not 
slept  much,  for  over  three  long  years. 

"It's  a  sort  of  a  symbol,"  he  often  told  himself.  "I 
have  lost  my  old  name  here,  my  old  identity.  All  I 
have  learned  in  these  last  years  has  no  connection  with 
my  past  life.  I'm  cut  off  from  all  that.  It's  like  being 
a  child  of  three  when  you've  really  thirty  years  some- 
where behind  you. ' ' 

And  very  often  he  felt  as  helpless  as  a  child,  and  as 
lonely. 

People  had  been  kind  to  him.  He  used  often  to  won- 
der at  their  open-heartedness,  their  good-fellowship. 
Yet  he  knew  that  he  was  to  them  an  outsider,  and  would 
always  remain  so.  "Der  Herr  Mister" — "Der  Amerik- 
aner."  The  deadliest  insult  that  one  Tyroler  can  fling 
in  another's  face  is  to  call  him  "Sie  Zugereister," — 
an  untranslatable  word,  meaning  everything  from 
foreigner  and  stranger  to  escaped  convict  and  tramp. 
And  Edwards  had  never  forgotten  his  first  semester 
and  the  jealousy  with  which  his  younger  colleagues 
often  regarded  him,  constantly  on  the  watch  lest  he 
should  be  given  some  advantage  in  the  dissecting-room 
or  the  laboratory,  in  which  they,  the  native-born,  had 
not  had  their  proper  share.  Only  gradually  had  this 
distrust  disappeared.  Now  he  was  accepted  by  the 
others  as  an  anachronism,  but  a  not  unpleasant  one. 
They  sometimes  called  him  "Sie  Zugereister"  still,  but 
they  laughed  when  they  said  it,  and  slapped  him  on  the 
back. 

The  sunlight  was  streaming  over  the  gate  beyond 
the  porter's  lodge,  and  Edwards  leaned  against  the  iron 
bars.  He  did  not  want  to  go  back  to  his  dreary  room. 
Lectures  were  over;  the  laboratories  and  clinics  closed 
to  him.  And  though  there  was  work  enough  to  be 
done,  books  enough  to  be  read,  yet  he  had  not  energy 
enough  to  begin.  Spring  was  early  this  year;  such 
warmth  at  the  end  of  March  was  unusual.  And  spring 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        13 

was  always  for  him  a  time  of  torment.  Perhaps  it  was 
because  Innsbruck  had  no  spring  that  he  liked  the  place 
so  much.  It  rained  and  snowed  and  was  cold,  often  into 
May.  Then  it  was  suddenly  hot  summer.  But  this 
year  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  not  to  be  spared  his  torment 
after  all. 

To  the  left  of  the  hospital  gate  was  the  big  black 
notice-board,  dotted  over  with  squares  of  white;  an- 
nouncements of  vacant  practices  or  clinical  appoint- 
ments. He  had  read  them  all  so  often — quite  hope- 
lessly. For  always  the  first  condition  was  that  the  ap- 
plicant must  be  an  Austrian  subject ;  and  the  process  of 
naturalization  would  cost  five  hundred  crowns.  Not 
that  he  ever  thought  of  it  seriously.  In  the  depths  of 
his  heart  he  clung  to  his  American  birthright.  Yet  he 
must  get  something  to  do, — he  must,  for  the  work's 
sake.  A  small  monthly  draft,  his  share  in  his  great- 
grandmother's  property,  made  it  possible  for  him  to 
live  without  working.  He  often  wondered  why  he 
labored  so  conscientiously.  He  might  have  sought  out 
some  place  in  Italy  or  Dalmatia  where  he  could  have 
lived  in  idleness,  and,  if  it  were  cheap,  quite  decently. 
But  something  within  him — some  uneasy  demon — drove 
him  on.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  lost  something  that  he 
was  working  to  recover.  "What  he  had  lost  he  knew 
quite  well.  But  he  was  often  quite  as  sure  that  it  was 
not  worth  recovering. 

"Hello, — you, — Herr  Mister,"  called  a  cheerful  voice 
behind  him. 

A  slight,  under-sized  young  man,  with  a  straggling 
black  beard  that  had  never  known  the  razor,  short- 
sighted, beady  eyes,  and  the  general  appearance  of  a 
Polish  Jew,  came  hurrying  along.  He  stopped  in  front 
of  Edwards. 

"Got  your  lecture  attendance-book  signed  up  yet? 
I've  got  mine.  Schroeder's  just  put  his  fist  to  it.  He's 
the  last.  And  he  made  me  wait  almost  half  an  hour. 
He  was  doing  a  craniotomy.  Made  me  come  in  and 
watch.  Shall  I  tell  you  about  it?  I've  got  five  min- 
utes." 


14        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Edwards  nodded.  This  was  one  of  his  friends,— a 
man  who  interested  him  because  his  appearance  did 
so  strangely  belie  his  name  and  lineage,  for  he  was  a 
Freiherr  von  Atems,  from  South  Tyrol,  a  member  of 
one  of  the  oldest  country  families,  whose  aversion  to 
the  Hebrew  is  so  intense  that  they  prefer  never  to 
dwell  on  the  fact  that  the  founder  of  the  Catholic  reli- 
gion, which  they  profess  with  such  devotion,  was  him- 
self a  circumcised  descendant  of  the  house  of  David. 

Edwards  only  half  listened  as  von  Atems  made  rapid 
explanatory  sketches  in  the  gravel  with  his  stick.  But 
he  caught  a  few  sentences  here  and  there. 

"Say  what  you  like,  Herr  Kollega,  old  Schroeder's 
got  a  lot  of  class  and  'chic'  still,  for  all  his  sixty 
years.  .  .  .  Yes,  it  was  idiotic  for  these  chaps  to  go  off 
ski-ing  in  the  mountains  after  such  a  sudden  warm 
break  in  the  weather.  Of  course  there  are  avalanches. 
.  .  .  When  they  got  help  and  dug  the  lot  out,  three 
were  dead — smashed — pfutsch!  One  wasn't  hurt  at  all. 
T'other  was  dotty.  He  had  a  soft  pushed-in  spot  over 
his  right  temple.  He  was  brought  to  the  Clinic  yester- 
day. 'No  operation  yet,'  said  Schroeder;  'we'll  wait.' 
.  .  .  This  morning  the  man  was  unconscious.  Pulse 
slow — getting  slower.  Schroeder  got  all  his  assistants 
on  the  jump.  The  patient  on  the  table.  .  .  .  My  God, 
it  made  me  jump  to  see  the  old  man  make  that  big  in- 
cision along  the  ear  and  away  up.  He  opened  almost 
the  whole  side  of  the  chap 's  head.  He  found  the  squama 
of  the  temporal  bone  all  smashed  into  six  or  seven  little 
bits.  They  were  pushing  into  the  brain.  He  pulled 
'em  out  with  pinchers,  one  by  one.  Then  he  tidied  up 
the  brain-surface  underneath. — Wasn't  much  harm  done 
there.  But  the  'dura  mater.' — My  God,  it  was  all  in 

rags. — What  was  he  to  do  ? Well,  what  did  he  do  ? 

— guess." 

The  surgeon  in  Edwards  woke  somewhat;  he  began 
to  pay  closer  attention. 

"Down  he  goes  to  the  right  thigh.  Skin  disinfected, 
— all  that, — quick  too.  Cuts  out  a  good  square  chunk  of 
the  fascia  lata  and  claps  it  over  the  brain,  where  the 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        15 

dura  was  in  rags.  Then  he  trims  off  the  rough  edges 
of  the  dura,  sews  the  piece  of  fascia  on  to  it,  lays  the 
splintered  bits  of  temporal  bone  over  the  hole  in  the 
skull — like  fitting  a  puzzle  together  it  was — and  stitches 
them  together  under  the  periost.  Closes  the  wound; 
makes  a  sort  of  round  protecting  cap  for  the  chap's 
head  out  of  the  top  of  a  thick  cardboard  box;  band- 
ages up.  All  over  in  twenty-five  odd  minutes.  And 
all  that  time,  his  old  hands  never  made  an  unnecessary 
movement,  never  did  anything  but  exactly  the  right 
thing  at  exactly  the  right  time." 

"And  the  patient?" 

"Pulse  not  so  slow.  Better  symptoms  all  round. 
Schroeder  says  he'll  get  well.  And  he  knows,  he  does, 
the  wise  old  bird." 

Edwards  was  used  to  his  friend's  quick,  excited  man- 
ner, but  it  began  to  be  borne  in  upon  him  that  von 
Atems  was  more  excited  than  usual. 

"You  seem  to  be  rather  high  up  in  the  air,"  he 
ventured  to  remark. 

"Why,  of  course,  man,"  answered  the  other,  his  face 
gleaming  with  contentment.  "I'm  going  home,  after 
being  in  this  God-forsaken  city  for  wellnigh  three 
months,  shut  up  in  a  little  stuffy  room,  or  in  the  lecture- 
theater,  where  it's  too  hot  for  us  students  with  our 
clothes  on  and  not  hot  enough  for  the  patients  with 
their  clothes  off.  Naturally,  I'm  up  in  the  air.  But 
forgive  me,"  he  added  hastily;  "you  won't  understand. 
— Never  been  in  Vintschgau,  I  suppose.  Well,  then, 
you  can't  know  what  it's  like, — my  home.  Besides,  you 
Americans  are  always  knocking  about  the  world  so  con- 
stantly that  you  can 't  have  much  love  for  any  particular 
bit  of  earth.  Our  people  stick  too  close  to  the  soil: 
it  makes  us  narrow  and  all  that,  I  admit — makes  us 
vilely  unhappy  anywhere  except  on  our  own  little  patch 
of  ground.  I  simply  couldn't  live  away  from  home  very 
long. — Come  down  south  and  see  me. — No? — You  aren't 
going  to  stay  on  here  in  the  city  ? — Well,  I  suppose  you 
know  best. — I'm  off — leaving  this  evening,  and  to-mor- 
row I'll  be  home.— Think  of  it." 


16        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

He  calmed  down  abruptly  as  if  ashamed  of  his  en- 
thusiastic outburst. 

"Ich  habe  die  Ehre,  Herr  Kollega,"  he  said,  click- 
ing his  heels  together;  "I  wish  you  very  pleasant  holi- 
days." 

And  he  almost  danced  out  of  the  hospital  gate,  twir- 
ling his  stick  and  whistling  between  his  teeth. 

Edwards  looked  after  him, — after  this  man  who  loved 
his  home,  and  who  was  going  there.  Mechanically  he 
made  his  way  to  the  long  green  bench  beside  the  en- 
trance of  the  porter's  lodge,  sat  down  and  covered  his 
face  with  his  hands.  And  he  saw  what  he  so  often  saw 
in  dreams. 

A  stretch  of  New  England  road  that  climbed  a  short 
hill  and  then  dipped  down  into  a  valley  filled  with 
trees;  and,  in  the  distance,  above  the  trees,  a  square 
Norman  tower, — the  chapel  tower  of  his  old  school. 
The  other  buildings  were  hidden  from  sight,  but  he 
knew  where  they  all  lay — oh,  so  well — so  well. 

If  he  could  only  walk  that  road  again — once. 

Doubtless  the  place  was  quite  changed;  the  build- 
ings and  grounds  all  altered.  No  one  would  remember 
him.  Yet  it  was  home,  or  a  part  of  it.  And  he  wanted 
it  so. 

Then  he  had  another  clear  vision:  the  corner  of  a 
street  in  a  small  American  city.  You  had  come  up  a 
steep  side  street,  now  you  turned  to  your  left,  and  be- 
fore you  stretched  a  quiet  park,  bordered  by  a  single 
line  of  houses.  In  the  third  house  from  the  corner  was 
a  bay-window. 

He  could  look  up  and  see  someone  standing  there. 
His  mother,  watching  out  for  him  when  he  came  back 
from  the  office.  Or  his  little  sister,  flattening  her  nose 
against  the  pane. 

All  gone,  long  since.  The  house  sold,  torn  down, 
perhaps;  the  people  who  had  lived  in  it,  and  had  loved 
him,  scattered  or  dead.  Yet  he  longed  for  a  sight  of  it. 
That  was  home. 

Then  he  remembered  the  days  when  he  had  to  pull 
himself  together  as  he  rounded  that  corner,  lest  his  un- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        17 

steady  gait  should  betray  him  to  the  eyes  that  watched 
from  the  old  bay-window.  And  the  last  time  he  had 
walked  down  that  street,  away  from  the  house,  out  of 
his  past  life,  knowing  that  he  should  never  see  it 
again. 

The  May  breeze  had  wafted  him  the  warm  smell  of  the 
flower-beds  in  the  park,  of  the  lawns,  especially  of  the 
blossoming  syringa  bushes. — He  could  smell  the  syringa 
now. 

"I  want  to  go  home — I  want  to  go  home,"  he  mut- 
tered, like  a  lost  unhappy  child. 

A  timid,  heavy  hand  touched  him  on  the  shoulder; 
he  looked  up  into  the  face  of  a  typical  Tyrolese  country- 
man. A  face  such  as  one  sees  in  masses  among  the  pic- 
tures, in  the  war  museum  on  Berg  Isel,  of  the  men  who 
followed  Andreas  Hofer  in  1809  when  he  fought  the 
French.  Hard,  rough-hewn  features,  heavy  lips,  and 
childish  kindly  eyes,  surrounded  by  a  tremendous,  un- 
kempt beard.  The  type  has  not  changed  in  a  hundred 
years.  Nothing  changes  in  Tyrol — much. 

' '  Griias  Gott, ' ' x  the  countryman  said  in  a  harsh  gut- 
tural voice.  "Be  so  good  as  to  tell  me  where  I  must 
take  the  mother." 

Edwards  jumped  up.  His  first  thought  was  to  point 
to  the  lodge.  Why  should  he  do  porter's  duty?  But 
the  helplessness  of  the  farmer  touched  him.  Besides, 
the  porter  was  a  Bohemian;  and  this  man  spoke  in 
the  country  dialect.  He  would  surely  have  difficulty  in 
making  himself  understood.  Edwards  had  "both  lan- 
guages," German  and  the  dialect;  in  his  heart  he  was 
proud  of  this  knowledge,  the  result  of  years  spent  as 
a  boy  in  the  Bavarian  highlands,  and  was  never  dis- 
inclined to  use  it.  So  he  walked  out  to  the  dusty 
wagon  that  stood  near  the  hospital  gate. 

On  the  front  seat  sat  an  old  woman,  leaning  back 
with  closed  eyes,  whose  face  had  the  sunken  lines  and 
ashen  shadows  that  betray  the  presence  of  some  malig- 
nant intestinal  growth,  even  to  the  dullest  of  medical 

1  "God's  greeting  to  you" — the  common  form  of  salutation 
among  the  country  people  in  Tyrol. 


18        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

students.  Yet,  for  form's  sake,  though  it  was  none  of 
his  business,  Edwards  asked — 

"What's  the  matter?" 

"It'll  be  'the  wasting  sickness,'"  the  farmer  an- 
swered, fingering  his  beard.  ' '  It  be  two  years  now  since 
it  begun.  In  our  valley  it's  a  true  cross, — that  same. 
Even  the  healthiest-looking  women,  they  begin  to  get 
thin;  they  can't  eat.  The  smell  of  good  meat  cooking 
makes  'em  sick.  And  then  they  have  pains, — so  they 
say.  And  can't  do  much  work.  By-and-by  they  can't 
work  at  all.  And  then  they're  no  use  or  help  about  the 
house  any  more." 

"And  when  they're  no  more  use,"  Edwards  flashed 
out,  "you  cart  them  in  here  to  the  hospital  to  die."  In 
his  anger  he  dropped  into  harsh,  broad  dialect.  He 
pointed  to  the  almost  unconscious  woman.  "Don't  you 
know  that  if  you  'd  brought  her  here  two  years  ago,  when 
she  began  to  have  the  pains  and  couldn't  eat,  we  might 
have  made  her  well?  But  of  course  you  didn't  bother. 
She  was  able  to  drudge  and  slave  for  you  still;  so  you 
kept  her  going  till  it  was  too  late.  'Pains — so  they  say !' 
If  you  'd  had  one-hundredth  part  of  her  pain  you  'd  have 
sent  for  all  the  doctors  in  the  country. ' ' 

The  farmer  stared  stupidly  at  Edwards.  But  the 
sound  of  his  own  dialect  gave  him  confidence;  he  lifted 
one  thick,  grimy  finger  and  wagged  it  beneath  Edwards' 
nose. 

"Na,  Herr  Doktor,  na-a-,"  he  said.  "Since  you  speak 
like  us  you  11  be  knowing  how  it  is  where  we  live.  We 
ain't  got  no  doctor  in  Thiersee.  Though  we've  been 
asking  for  one  these  last  five  years. — We're  so  deep  in 
the  valley.  And  we're  poor.  So  is  the  land.  I've 
been  three  whole  days  driving  in  with  the  mother.  And 
do  you  think  she'd  have  give  up  her  work  and  let  me 
bring  her  all  the  way  here  to  see  a  doctor  when  she 
was  first  took  sick?  Not  she.  She's  been  a  good 
mother; — none  better.  But  we've  both  got  to  work 
hard, — work  till  we  just  can't  work  any  more." 

"Well,  drive  her  to  the  Surgical  Clinic,"  said  Ed- 
wards. Unnecessary  suffering  always  roused  him;  his 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        19 

former  mood  of  hopeless  inaction  vanished  in  an  in- 
stant. "The  assistant  on  duty  will  give  you  a  paper. 
Come  back  with  that  to  the  porter 's  lodge  here ;  get  the 
other  papers  filled  out ;  and  then  you  can  leave  her.  I 
suppose  you'll  be  wanting  to  get  back." 

"I  was  a-thinking  of  it.  There's  no  one  at  home  but 
the  hired  man ;  and  he 's  a  born  thief. ' ' 

"Better  bid  her  good-by  now,"  suggested  Edwards, 
as  the  farmer  began  to  lead  his  horse  through  the 
hospital  gate. 

"We  been  a-saying  good-by  all  the  way  here,  mostly. 
'Twas  a  long  drive. — And  she's  been  a  mighty  good 
mother. ' ' 

The  old  woman  in  the  wagon  opened  her  eyes.  The 
thin,  bluish  lips  parted  in  a  ghastly  smile  over  stumps 
of  decayed  teeth. 

"I'll  be  making  thee  another  pair  of  socks,  agin  next 
winter,  while  I'm  here,  Kassian,"  she  said.  "And 
maybe  I'll  soon  be  well  again.  I  made  a  vow  to  the 
'Sieben  Nothelfer.'  "l 

Then,  turning  to  Edwards,  she  bent  down  from  her 
seat  in  the  wagon  and  added  in  a  lower  voice — 

"He's  been  a  good  son.  But  I'd  rest  quieter  if  I 
knew  he  was  on  the  road  home.  It's  the  'schnaps.' 
That's  what  makes  his  hands  shake  so.  But  what  will 
you?  He  was  once  'prenticed  to  a  mason.  And  all 
masons  drink  spirits. — Go  along,  Kassian.  I'm  ready." 

They  turned  a  corner  of  the  buildings  and  disap- 
peared. 

Edwards  began  to  walk  up  and  down  in  the  patch 
of  sunlight  just  inside  the  gate.  His  whole  soul  was 
up  in  arms  against  disease  and  death.  According  to 
this  countryman,  here  was  a  community  of  people  in  the 
midst  of  a  civilized  land  that  could  not  get  a  physician 
to  live  among  them — that  sickened  and  died  as  men  must 

1  "Sieben  Nothelfer" — "The  Seven  Helpers  in  grievous  need" ; 
seven  particular  saints,  to  whom  the  country  people  pray  in  times 
of  great  trouble.  "Alle  Sieben  Nothelfer"  is  also  used  as  a  con- 
versational phrase,  to  express  astonishment  or  to  affirm  Home 
statement. 


20        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

have  done  in  barbarous  times — like  beasts.  "Worse  even 
than  beasts,  for  the  lives  of  cattle  were  valuable,  and 
had,  no  doubt,  the  care  of  a  veterinary  surgeon.  He 
could  imagine  what  life  must  be  at  Thiersee.  Scattered 
red  houses,  not  more  than  fifty,  at  the  end  of  a  narrow 
valley.  A  long  unbroken  winter ;  a  thankless  soil ;  men 
and  women  old  and  withered  long  before  their  time; 
the  children  thin  and  deformed.  He  knewT  how  untrue 
to  actual  conditions  is  the  current  ideal  of  the  "healthy 
country  population,  growing  to  perfect  strength  near  the 
heart  of  nature." 

In  Thiersee  there  would  be  no  drainage;  but  there 
would  be  typhoid  and  enteric  enough;  diphtheria,  too. 
A  mother  would  work  until  the  last  moment  before 
the  birth  of  her  child.  If  she  happened  to  be  strong, 
if  the  one  or  the  other  of  a  hundred  possible  complica- 
tions did  not  occur,  the  baby  would  be  somehow  rushed 
into  the  world.  Otherwise  the  woman  would  die. 
Without  help.  And  in  what  agony ! 

Then,  cancer.  The  farmer  had  said  that  it  was  com- 
mon among  them.  When  an  early  diagnosis  might  be 
of  vital  importance,  there  was  no  one  to  make  it. 

And  tuberculosis,  perhaps.  Surely,  all  sorts  of  acci- 
dents. A  foot  chopped  with  a  rusty  axe;  blood- 
poisoning;  in  a  few  days,  death.  Falls  in  the  moun- 
tains— avalanches 

And  all  without  help, — without  help. 

His  vivid  imagination  painted  the  picture  in  its  crud- 
est colors. 

Still  more  appalling  was  the  hopelessness  of  the  situa- 
tion. A  young  physician  must  live;  he  could  not  be 
expected  to  exist  in  a  community  unable  to  supply  him 
with  a  living  wage.  And  even  if  there  were  no  money 
difficulties,  who  would  be  willing  to  bury  himself  alive 
in  such  a  remote  corner  of  the  mountains? 

Of  course,  Thiersee  must  be  an  exception.  The  Gov- 
ernment would  certainly  never  allow  such  conditions 
to  exist  for  long. 

Curiosity  drove  him  now  to  cast  a  glance  at  the  notice- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        21 

board  that  hung  on  the  wall  beside  the  lodge.  Were 
there  really  communities  who  were  applying  for  resi- 
dent physicians  and  not  getting  them? 

He  glanced  through  twenty  odd  applications. 

No.  What  they  offered  was  enough  for  a  man  to 
live  on.  The  neatly  typed  notices,  from  the  mayor's 
office  in  villages  all  over  the  country,  had  a  look  of 
well-to-do  stability.  Thiersee  and  its  needs  must  be  a 
myth  of  a  drunkard's  imagination,  who  had  been  only 
seeking  some  excuse  for  his  patent  neglect  of  his  suffer- 
ing mother. 

Then,  far  down  in  one  corner  of  the  board,  Edwards 
caught  sight  of  another  document.  It  was  written,  not 
typed;  badly  written  and  with  many  blots.  At  first 
he  had  supposed  it  to  be  one  of  the  many  notices  posted 
by  students  who  want  to  sell  some  of  their  medical 
books.  Now  he  saw  that  it  was  pasted  on  to  a  larger 
sheet  of  paper,  headed  with  the  address  of  the  Dean's 
Office,  and  preceded  by  a  short  statement  to  the  effect 
that  the  following  petition  had  been  received  in  three 
copies,  one  of  which  was  here,  duly  and  according  to 
law,  posted  on  the  Academic  Notice  Board. 

Edwards  read  it  through  slowly,  word  for  word.  It 
was  not  easy  to  decipher,  and  the  spelling  was  peculiar. 

At  first  he  smiled;  then  the  smile  faded,  for  the  sim- 
plicity and  childlike  directness  of  the  language  im- 
pressed him.  The  petitioners  seemed  so  sure  that  the 
high  powers  of  the  University,  which  they  were  address- 
ing, could  and  would  send  them  all  they  asked.  Ed- 
wards, who  eagerly  collected  such  interesting  literary 
specimens,  took  out  his  notebook  and  began  to  translate 
the  notice.  But  what  had  sounded  so  simply  impres- 
sive in  German  was  in  English  ridiculous. 

"We,  the  Undersigned,  do  most  humbly  and  on-our- 
knees-fallingly  beg  the  Most-Praiseworthy,  Learned,  and 
Honorable  Medical  Faculty  of  the  Royal  and  Imperial 
University  in  Innsbruck  to  pardon  us,  of  its  great  kind- 
ness, if  we  allow  ourselves,  humbly  and  on-our-knees- 


22        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

fallingly,  to  make  it  known  to  the  Most-Praiseworthy, 
Learned,  and  Honorable  Faculty  of  the  said  Royal  and 
Imperial  University,  that — there  ain't  no  doctor  here. 

"We  could  give,  from  the  communal  treasury — not 
much.  Perhaps,  400  crowns  a-year.  But  the  doctor 
shall  have  lodging  free.  And  all  the  wood  he  wants. 
And  we  would  sell  him  everything  else  at  cost-price. 
Maybe  for  less — if  he  is  a  very  useful  doctor. 

Our  climate  is  not  so  very  bad.  But  not  so  good  that 
people  do  not  get  sick.  We  have  a  parish  priest.  A 
schoolmaster  for  six  months  in  the  year.  Also,  this 
summer,  we  are  giving  our  once-every-five-years  Passion- 
Play. 

Most  Praiseworthy,  Learned,  and  Honorable  Medical 
Faculty  of  the  Royal  and  Imperial  University  in  Inns- 
bruck, we,  the  Undersigned,  pray  you  most  humbly,  on- 
our-knees-fallingly,  to  send  us  a  doctor. 

Even  a  not-yet-doctorated  young  man  would  do. 

"We  have  the  honor  to  remain,  Most  Praiseworthy, 
Learned,  and  Honorable " 

A  large  grimy  forefinger  appeared  over  Edwards' 
shoulder  and  rested  on  a  corner  of  the  strangely  worded 
notice. 

"That's  us,"  said  a  voice. 

As  Edwards  turned,  he  caught  the  sharp  odor  of 
"schnaps," — the  heavy  white  "Brantwein,"  that  the 
common  people  call  "Swine-Belly,"  so  vile  is  it.  Be- 
hind him  stood  the  farmer  from  Thiersee. 

"The  Biirgermeister  wrote  that  paper,"  he  went  on 
proudly.  "He  copied  it  out  three  times — three  times 
— last  December  it  was." 

Edwards  looked  closer.  At  the  bottom  of  the  notice 
he  read:  "Thiersee,  Unterinnthal. "  So  it  was  no 
mythical  place  after  all. 

"We  ain't  had  no  answer  yet,"  he  heard  the  farmer 
say;  "I  was  a-thinking  of  asking  the  porter  to  ask 
the  Dean's  servant  if  the  Dean  had  heard  anything. — 
Perhaps — perhaps,  the  Herr  Doktor  himself  knows  of 
somebody  who  might  come  to  us.  Not  a  fine  gentle- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        23 

man  like  you.  I  mean,  someone  that's  sort  of  been  left 
over. ' ' 

"What  have  you  done  with  your  mother?"  Edwards 
demanded. 

"Oh,  she's  all  right."  The  man's  hand  wandered 
mechanically  towards  the  inside  pocket  of  his  ill-fitting 
coat.  "The  sister's  putting  her  to  bed.  And  I've  come 
to  the  porter  for  the  other  papers. ' ' 

"You've  had  a  drink." 

"Only  a  mouthful.  I  got  my  bottle  filled  on  the 
way  into  Innsbruck. — The  mother  saw  me. ' ' 

Edwards'  hand  dived  down  into  the  other's  pocket 
and  drew  out  an  old  tin  flask  covered  with  rough  stained 
cloth.  He  held  it  to  his  ear ;  there  was  a  good  half -liter 
in  it  still. 

"Now,  look  here,"  he  said  to  the  countryman,  whose 
swimming  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  precious  flask,  in  dread 
of  losing  it.  "You  do  as  I  tell  you.  And  I'll  speak  to 
the  Dean  myself — about  your  doctor. — Understand?" 

"Gracious  sir — gracious  sir,  God  will  reward  you. 
God  and  all  the  'Sieben  Nothelfer.'  ' 

"Do  you  know  what  a  Cinematograph  is?  Moving 
pictures? — You've  heard  of  them,  of  course.  Well, 
there's  a  show  on  now.  In  the  Maria-Theresia  strasse. 
Go  and  see  it.  See  two  shows  if  you  like.  Only  leave 
this  flask  with  your  mother.  She'll  give  it  to  you  later. 
Then,  when  you've  seen  the  pictures  and  had  some- 
thing to  eat,  come  back  here.  Tell  your  mother  about 
the  show.  That'll  cheer  her  up.  Promise  to  take  her  to 
see  one  as  soon  as  she's  well.  Then  bid  her  good-by. 
She'll  give  you  your  schnaps-bottle,  and  you  can  start 
for  home  at  once.  Never  mind  if  you  have  to  drive  all 
night.  Only  promise  that  you  won't  buy  any  more 
schnaps  here  in  Innsbruck.  Will  you?" 

"Yes,  yes,  gracious  sir.  I  promise.  And  you'll 
speak  to  the  Dean  for  us ?  Really?" 

"And  I'll  write  you  a  letter  about  what  he  says." 

"May  God  make  it  good  to  you,  here  in  this  world, 
in  heaven  above  and  in  the  fires  of  Purgatory,  ten  thou- 
sand thousand  times." 


24        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"Don't  forget  your  promise. — And  remember  that 
your  mother's  going  to  get  well.  Hope  you'll  enjoy 
yourself.  Good-by." 

"Ach,  gracious  Herr  Doktor,"  persisted  the  country- 
man, clinging  to  Edwards'  hand,  that  had  restored  the 
schnaps-bottle  to  its  owner's  pocket.  "If  only  you 
would  come  to  us.  If  you " 

He  stopped,  confused,  ashamed,  and  wiped  his  fore- 
head with  his  sleeve. 

"I'm  getting  flies  in  my  brain-box.  Excuse,  Herr 
Doktor.  But  Herr  Doktor  speaks  our  language;  and 
an  idiot  like  me  gets  quickly  talking  nonsense.  Excuse 
that  I  suggested  Herr  Doktor 's  coming.  It  was  a  mad 
thought.  But  if  Herr  Doktor  would  really  speak  with 
the  Dean,  and  perhaps  write.  My  name  is  Zumptobel- 
Kassian, — auf  Innenhof.  In  Thiersee — Herr  Doktor — 
in  Thiersee." 

Edwards  took  the  man's  huge  chapped  hand  in  his. 
There  was  in  all  these  big  men  something  of  the  believ- 
ing child  that  appealed  to  him.  Heaven  knew  that  their 
lives  were  hard  and  dark  enough.  Yet  they  themselves 
were  neither  dark  nor  hard. 

"Well,  Herr  Zumptobel,"  he  said,  and  his  smile  was 
so  spontaneous  that  it  brought  an  answering  grin  to  the 
bearded  face  that  looked  up  at  him,— "Well — and  why 
not?  But  remember — no  more  schnaps. " 

He  turned,  passed  quickly  through  the  gate,  and  out 
into  the  street.  Zumptobel-Kassian,  gazing  dumbly  after 
him,  saw  him  push  his  hat  jauntily  on  one  side  of  his 
head,  and  heard  him  begin  to  whistle. 

' '  Das  ist  aber  ein  f einer  Herr, ' ' 1  muttered  Kassian. 

And  Edwards,  as  he  walked  whistling  towards  his 
lonely  room,  felt  his  evil  mood  drop  from  him,  felt  the 
warm  sun  on  his  face  and  hands,  felt  the  touch  of  spring 
in  the  air. 

"Well,"  he  kept  repeating  to  himself;  "well,  and 
why  not?" 

1  "Ein  feiner  Herr"  means  more  than  "a  fine  gentleman" ;  "Fein" 
is  the  countryman's  expression  for  everything  in  the  city  that  he 
admires  and  desires  to  possess. 


CHAPTER  III 

Two  weeks  later,  Edwards  sat  at  the  table  in  his  dis- 
mantled room,  tearing  up  old  letters.  Most  of  his  books 
were  packed,  together  with  his  microscope  and  such  few 
medical  instruments  as  he  possessed.  He  had  no  proper 
outfit  for  any  sort  of  a  general  medical  practice ;  but  the 
whole  thing  appeared  to  him  as  such  a  preposterous  risk 
that  minor  difficulties  had  little  or  no  significance. 

He  heard  steps  in  the  hall.  And  his  landlady  ushered 
in  Professor  Schroeder,  glorious  in  a  dark-blue  uniform 
with  gold-embroidered  trimmings,  and  more  than  usually 
ill  at  ease  because  of  his  sword  and  plumed  cocked-hat. 

"Feel  like  a  jackass,"  he  explained,  as  he  shook  hands. 
"But  it's  the  Emperor's  birthday,  you  know.  And  the 
Faculty  has  to  be  represented  at  the  usual  functions. 
It's  no  joke  being  Dean." 

"Lucky  for  me,  sir,  that  you  are,"  answered  Edwards, 
dusting  off  a  few  square  inches  of  the  table  for  the 
Professor 's  cocked-hat.  ' '  Nobody  else  would  have  helped 
me  as  you  've  done  about  this  Thiersee  business. ' ' 

"I  don't  approve  of  it  at  all."  The  Professor  sat 
down  carefully.  His  uniform-trousers,  made  thirty-five 
odd  years  ago  when  he  had  his  first  audience  with  the 
Emperor  as  a  newly-appointed  Professor,  were  now  very 
tight.  "And  that's  one  of  the  reasons  why  I've  come 
to-day.  I  want  you  to  understand  exactly  what  you're 
doing. — You're  taking  big  risks.  Just  let's  consider  a 
few  of  them. 

"Risk  Number  One. — You've  an  American  degree  in 
medicine.  But  the  Austrian  law  permits  no  one  to  prac- 
tise here  who  has  not  made  his  doctorate  at  an  Austrian 
university.  You  might  be  Metschnikoff  or  Carrel  him- 
self, yet  you'd  have  to  go  through  your  examinations 
with  us  in  due  course  before  you  could  legally  lance 

25 


26        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

your  first  bolt.  Legally, — that's  the  point.  Of  course 
there  are  a  lot  of  quacks  in  the  country,  not  such  stupid 
fellows  either  by  the  way,  to  whom  the  farmers  go,  and 
in  whom  they  have  more  confidence  than  in  a  regular 
practitioner.  It's  a  dangerous  abuse;  the  law  does  all 
it  can  to  stamp  it  out ;  but  these  men  are  careful  to  im- 
pose silence  on  their  patients.  It's  hard  to  prove  that 
they  have  ever  given  medical  advice  for  money.  If  the 
law  does  catch  them,  though,  it  comes  down  hard.  Now, 
you're  putting  yourself  on  the  same  basis  with  these  fel- 
lows. You've  no  legal  right  to  murder  given  you  by  an 
Austrian  medical  faculty.  And  you're  going  to  prac- 
tise openly,  not  carefully  and  in  secret.  In  a  town  where 
there  were  other  physicians,  who  would  at  once  inform 
the  police,  you'd  be  arrested  within  a  week.  And  if  the 
medical  head  of  the  district  in  which  Thiersee  lies  wants 
to  make  trouble,  even  though  he  knows  how  badly  Thier- 
see needs  a  doctor,  he  can  shut  up  your  shop  in  no  time. 
But  I  don't  see  why  he  should  hear  much  about  you ;  and 
I'll  try  to  square  him,  anyway.  But  this  isn't  the  chief 
danger. — That  will  come  from  your  own  Thiersee  people. 
Oh,  I've  worked  out  the  whole  situation.  I'm  a  fool  to 
let  you  try  it. — Only  I  can't  stop  you,  I'm  afraid. — 
Come  in!" 

The  frowsy  landlady  knocked  and  admitted  a  ' '  Dienst- 
Mann,"  laden  down  with  several  large  boxes. 

"Set  'em  down  somewhere  and  get  out,"  commanded 
the  Professor,  as  he  paid  the  man  and  dismissed  him. 
Then,  turning  to  the  astonished  Edwards,  he  went  on — 

"Don't  mind  these  boxes  now.  We're  counting  up 
the  risks.  Number  Two. — In  Thiersee,  you  '11  surely  find 
some  local  quack.  He  must  not  know,  nobody  need 
know,  that  you're  not  a  properly  qualified  man;  and 
even  if  he  does  find  it  out,  he  won't  be  able  to  do  any- 
thing so  long  as  you  make  no  mistakes. — Eemember  that. 
...  I  don't  know  how  much  practice  you've  had,  but 
out  there  you'll  be  expected  to  do  good  work  in  every 
branch  of  the  healing  art.  It 's  a  big  contract ;  mistakes 
are  easy  to  make;  and  then  there's  always  the  element 
of  chance  in  all  these  things.  Suppose  you  do  make  a 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        27 

blunder,  or  have  bad  luck.  Tyrolese  farmers  are  hard- 
headed  people.  If  they  pay  you  ever  so  little,  they'll 
think  they  had  a  right  to  be  made  whole,  absolutely.  If 
you  lance  a  boil  too  hastily  and  the  man  gets  a  slight 
Lymphadenitis  and  can 't  work  for  a  month  and  has  hell- 
ish pains  besides, — or  if  he  loses  the  use  of  one  finger, 
— he  may,  and  probably  will,  bring  the  whole  business 
into  the  courts.  They  love  the  excitement  of  a  lawsuit. 
And  once  their  claim  for  compensation  against  you  is 
filed, — you're  done  for,  young  man, — done  for.  Heaven 
only  knows  how  topping  a  fine  you  11  get ;  and  if  you  can 't 
pay  it, — imprisonment.  All  of  which  is  fatal,  in  case 
you  want  to  come  back  to  this  or  any  other  Austrian 
university,  finish  your  medical  work,  take  your  degree, 
and  settle  down  here.  Is  it  worth  the  risk?  In  a  little 
over  a  year  you'll  be  legally  qualified.  Why  not  wait? 
Then  you  can  go  to  Thiersee  if  you  like.  But  now " 

"But  now  people  are  suffering  and  dying  there," 
Edwards  answered  doggedly.  "Of  course  they've  been 
doing  that  for  hundreds  of  years.  I  suppose  they  might 
go  on  for  a  few  years  more. — But  I  won't  have  it.  I 
can't  bear  it.  Besides,  all  these  risks  will  make  things 
exciting.  Work,  and  excitement  in  the  work!  What 
more  can  any  man  ask  1 ' ' 

The  Professor  gazed  fondly  at  his  cocked-hat  and 
stroked  the  green  feather  in  its  plume. 

' ' Hum-m-m-m-m,  yes,"  he  assented.  "So  much  for 
dangers  to  your  honor  and  personal  liberty.  How  about 
your  health  and  life?  Risk  Number  Three. — 'Tisn't 
much  of  a  climate  out  there  in  that  valley.  The  winters 
last  long.  If  the  farmers  get  you,  they'll  think  they 
own  you.  You'll  have  to  go  endless  distances  on  foot  or 
on  horseback.  They'll  send  for  you  without  adequate 
cause,  just  for  the  sake  of  having  the  luxury  of  seeing 
'their  Herr  Doktor'  under  their  roof.  And  unfortun- 
ately, so  far  as  work  is  concerned,  you  yourself  have  no 
sense  of  proportion.  You'll  go  till  you  drop.  And  your 
life  is  of  some  value,  I  take  it." 

"To  whom?    Not  to  me,"  came  the  bitter  retort. 

The  Professor  moved  uncomfortably.    A  certain  stiff, 


28        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

theatrical  tone  in  this  bitterness  disturbed  him;  it  was 
like  the  unnaturalness  of  an  actor  who  cannot  shake 
himself  free  from  some  oft-played  favorite  role. 

"But  of  value  to  us,"  he  answered,  lifting  his  eyes  to 
the  other's  face.  "You  have  made  many  friends  here 
during  these  last  three  years.  We  should  not  care  to 
lose  you; — nor  would  you  wish  to  lose  yourself.  Per- 
haps you  don't  quite  catch  what  I  mean.  In  that  prec- 
ious little  valley,  that  draws  you  so,  you  are  cut  off  from 
the  world  in  which  you  have  lived  all  your  life.  You 
will  have  no  single  soul  to  whom  you  can  speak  of  the 
things  that  fill  your  mind.  The  parish  priest  and  the 
schoolmaster  will  be  the  only  people  who  might  have 
the  slightest  sympathy  with  your  intellectual  interests. 
And  they  will  doubtless  be  exactly  the  two  men  who 
will  annoy  and  hamper  you  most.  For  we  doctors  can 
often  get  along  better  with  people  of  no  education  at  all 
than  with  others  whose  so-called  culture  is  nothing  but 
a  misshapen  mass  of  undigested  facts.  You  say  you 
have  been  lonely  here.  What  will  you  be  out  there? — 
And  the  ultimate  result? — Perhaps  the  blunting  of  all 
your  finer  susceptibilities,  a  falling  to  the  common  level 
of  the  life  around  you.  Or  else,  some  disturbance  of 
your  nervous  or  mental  balance.  More  dangerous  still. 
In  either  case  you  will  have  lost  yourself.  No,  no;  the 
whole  scheme  is  utterly  impossible.  Better  give  it  up." 

Edwards  rose  and  went  over  to  the  corner  where 
the  ' '  Dienst-Mann ' '  had  piled  the  three  mysterious  boxes. 

"Would  you  mind  telling  me,  sir,"  he  asked,  "just 
what  these  things  are?" 

The  Professor  stood  up  awkwardly  and  fell  over  his 
sword. 

"It  was  a  mistake,"  he  stammered.  "That  fool  of  a 
'Dienst-Mann'  was  told  not  to  deliver  them  until  later, 

when  I'd  had  my  little  talk  with  you.  The  fact  is " 

He  hung  his  head  as  if  detected  in  some  shameful  deed. 
"The  fact  is, — lieber  Herr  Kollega, — I  couldn't  let  you 
go  without,  so  to  speak,  filling  out  the  chinks  in  your — 
your  armor.  Forgive  me  for  interfering. — But  we've 
such  a  lot  of  instruments  we  don't  need  at  the  Clinic j 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        29 

old-fashioned  things,  but  solid, — solid.  And  I  knew 
you'd  probably  no  idea  of  what  you'd  be  needing  for  a 
general  country  practice.  So  I — so  I  just  had  a  few 
things  thrown  together  that  I  thought  might  be  useful. 
As  for  that  box  there" — he  gave  the  largest  of  the  cases 
an  apologetic  kick, — "that's  the  old  'Household  Chemist' 
I  had  when  I  started  practising  in  the  country  forty 
years  ago.  You'll  do  me  a  favor  by  taking  it  away. 
It's  been  lying  round  my  house,  cumbering  space.  I — 
I  had  a  few  of  the  drugs  and  mixtures  freshened  up. — 
It  was  a  liberty  to  take,  I  know. — I  hope  you  don't 
mind." 

Edwards  leaned  across  the  table  and  grasped  the  old 
man's  hand. 

"I  understand  now,"  he  said,  "why  people  love 
you." 

Then,  embarrassed  himself  and  ashamed  of  his  out- 
burst of  gratitude,  he  added — 

"Herr  Professor,  it  has  surely  cost  whole  days  to  get 
these  things  in  readiness  for  me.  So  you  must  have 
been  sure  that  I  would  go.  And  yet  you  come  here 
and  use  every  argument  in  your  power  to  try  and  per- 
suade me  to  give  up  my  plan.  You're  a  bit  of  a  fraud, 
sir,  I'm  afraid, — and  not  much  of  a  diplomat." 

"Well,"  said  the  old  man,  picking  up  his  plumed 
hat  and  extricating  his  sword  from  between  his  legs; 
"well,  you  see,  I  knew  you  oughtn't  to  go,  but  I  hoped 
you  would,  just  the  same.  Yes,  I  hoped.  If  you  hadn  't 
gone,  I'd  have  been  relieved,  but  disappointed.  And 
if  I  were  a  young  man,  I'd — I'd  like  to  go  with  you. — 
Anyway,  let's  have  a  letter  now  and  then.  And  if  you 
run  across  any  interesting  cases,  write  them  up  for  me. 
Now  I  must  be  off. — Good-by." 

And  without  allowing  Edwards  a  moment  to  express 
his  gratitude,  he  hurried  away,  his  plumed  hat  over  one 
ear,  and  his  sword  rattling  against  the  banisters  as  he 
almost  ran  down  the  stairs. 

He  made  for  the  nearest  letter-box. 

The  letter  that  he  dropped  in  with  such  care  was 
directed  to  "Frau  Professor  Schroeder,  at  Schloss  Lie- 


30        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

benegg,  near  Kuf  stein."     And  among  other  matters  it 
contained  the  following  sentences: — 

"My  young  American  is  really  going  on  his  quest. 
We  must  see  that  he  comes  to  no  harm.  I  have  told 
him  nothing  about  our  being  in  his  neighborhood;  he 
has  never  seen  you,  so  you  can  perfectly  well  ride  over 
to  Thiersee  once  a-week  and  find  out  how  he  gets  on. 
He  will  leave  the  railway  at  Kufstein,  and  must  stay 
a  night  there.  The  people  at  the  hotel  will  be  able  to 
tell  you  when  he  passes  through.  But  he  must  suspect 
nothing.  If  he  did,  the  whole  adventure  would  lose  its 
charm. 

"How  is  your  friend  from  America  enjoying  herself? 
It  must  be  very  dull  for  you  three  women  all  alone. 
I'm  glad  that  you  took  little  Miss  Sparks  with  you. 
The  poor  soul  needed  a  rest.  It's  wicked  the  way  schools 
overwork  their  teachers.  "What  is  the  boy  like?  Why 
doesn  't  his  mother  let  Miss  Sparks  give  him  some  lessons, 
— sort  of  nursery-governess  him,  while  you  and  she  are 
scouring  the  country  on  horse-back? 

"Hans  is  well,  but  very  busy  with  his  new  volume 
of  '  Struma-Studies. '  He  looks  a  bit  run  down. 

"We  both  envy  you  this  wonderful  weather.  The 
first  time  in  fifteen  years  that  I  have  ever  seen  any- 
thing like  spring  in  Tyrol.  The  last  time  was  the  year 
we  were  married.  Life  seemed  all  spring  to  me  then. 
And,  indeed,  it  has  seemed  so  ever  since. ' ' 


CHAPTER  IV 

"OF  course,  if  you  insist  on  walking,"  said  the  fat 
hostess  of  the  "Golden  Swan"  in  Kuf stein,  with  an 
expressive  shrug. 

"But  it  can't  be  more  than  twenty  kilometers,"  Ed- 
wards protested.  "The  road's  plain  enough,  you  say. 
Besides,  I've  got  a  map.  And  all  my  boxes  and  stuff 
went  off  yesterday  in  the  cart.  I've  nothing  but  this 
knapsack  to  carry.  And  you  see,  Frau  Wirtin,  I  slept 
so  soundly  last  night  in  your  excellent  bed  that  I  feel  too 
well  this  morning  to  let  even  your  good  horses  carry 
me." 

The  fat  Frau  "Wirtin  smiled.  Nevertheless  she  was 
still  perplexed. 

She  knew  that  Edwards  was  going  to  Thiersee,  evi- 
dently expecting  to  stay  there  a  long  time,  if  one  could 
judge  by  the  luggage  he  had  sent  on  ahead.  But  she 
remembered  the  local  Passion-Play  that  had  been  an- 
nounced for  the  coming  summer,  and  supposed  that  the 
priest  in  Thiersee  had  got  some  second-class  actor  down 
from  Munich,  as  the  Oberammergauers  did,  to  train  the 
peasants  in  their  roles. 

Yet,  that  a  man  who  had  taken  a  good  room  and  eaten 
an  expensive  dinner  without  asking  beforehand  what 
each  dish  cost,  should  next  morning  propose  to  tramp 
twenty  kilometers  over  the  roughest  of  roads  through 
mud  and  half-melted  snow,  when  he  could  have  had  a 
horse  for  a  few  crowns, — that  was  unusual,  to  say  the 
least.  At  first,  she  had  put  him  down  as  a  "feiner 
Herr. ' '  This  morning,  however,  in  his  old  shiny  riding- 
breeches,  and  with  a  weather-beaten  "rucksack"  slung 
over  his  shoulder,  he  did  not  look  like  a  "feiner  Herr" 
at  all.  Had  he  spoken  with  a  foreign  accent,  she  would 
have  been  satisfied  to  call  him  "a  mad  Englishman"  and 

31 


32        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

have  done  with  it.  As  matters  stood,  she  was  puzzled, 
until  she  consulted  the  stranger's  "Meldungs-Schein" 

and  found  thereon — "  Ziiderlanger,  Edward, Privat." 

A  form  of  his  name  which  Edwards  owed  to  his  own  lazi- 
ness, for  he  had  been  too  tired  to  fill  out  the  blank  in  ques- 
tion, and  had  merely  mumbled  his  name  to  the  stupid 
waiter,  who  had  filled  it  in  later  according  to  his  lights. 

"Ziiderlanger!"  said  the  Frau  Wirtin.  "He'll  be  a 
Jew.  I  thought  something  was  wrong  with  him  some- 
where." 

And  so,  when  later  in  the  day  the  Frau  Professor 
Schroeder,  accompanied  by  a  tall  woman  with  masses 
of  coppery  hair,  galloped  up  the  street  and  reined  in  her 
horse  in  front  of  the  "Golden  Swan,"  the  Frau  Wirtin 
was  quite  sure  that  among  her  guests  there  had  been 
no  Herr  Edwards,  an  American  gentleman.  And  as 
the  Frau  Professor  had  been  warned  not  to  challenge 
people's  attention  by  over-curious  inquiries,  she  and  her 
friend  rode  away,  supposing  that  the  young  man  con- 
fided to  their  care  had  not  yet  arrived. 

"I'm  not  exactly  sorry,  my  dear,"  she  said  to  her 
companion,  as  they  clattered  across  the  Inn  on  the  sway- 
ing bridge;  "for  I've  no  desire  to  ride  over  from  Lieben- 
egg  to  Thiersee  often  with  the  roads  in  their  present  con- 
dition. The  Kuf stein  road's  a  highway,  and  good 

enough.    But  towards  Thiersee !     Really,  it's  a  bit 

dangerous  for  the  horses'  feet,  you  know.  Well,  we've 
done  our  duty.  Next  week  we  can  come  into  Kufstein 
and  ask  again. ' ' 

On  their  way  back  to  Schloss  Liebenegg  they  made  a 
long  circuit  for  the  sake  of  some  view,  and  passed  a 
single  traveler,  who  was  plodding  along  in  the  sun,  with 
a  "rucksack"  on  his  shoulders.  He  was  singing  at  the 
top  of  his  voice,  but  stopped,  ashamed,  and  let  the  two 
women  ride  by. 

"That  last  stretch,"  said  the  Frau  Professor,  turning 
her  horse  towards  the  left,  "was  part  of  the  Thiersee 

i  The  paper  with  the  name  and  occupation  of  each  guest,  that 
must  be  given  to  the  police  within  twenty-four  hours  of  every 
stranger's  arrival. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        33 

road.  You  see  how  vile  it  is.  What's  the  matter,  Grace  ? 
Why  are  you  frowning  so?" 

"It's  the  thing  that  man  was  singing.  Oh,  I  know 
what  it  is  now."  Her  eyes  darkened  and  filled.  "One 
of  the  songs  they  used  to  sing  at  John's  old  school. 
He'd  often  play  it  on  the  piano  with  one  finger.  It 
always  reminded  him  of  a — of  a  man  he  was  very  fond 
of  once.  He  used  to  tell  me  about  him." 

She  tossed  back  the  heavy  shimmering  hair  from  her 
forehead. 

"But  I  mustn't  see  ghosts  everywhere,  must  I?  I 
daresay  it  was  quite  another  melody.  Let's  gallop." 

Edwards  leaned  against  a  bit  of  broken  fence  and 
looked  after  the  two  horsewomen  until  they  disappeared 
beneath  the  trees.  It  had  been  years  since  he  had  seen 
women  who  sat  their  horses  well.  But  he  shook  him- 
self free  of  memories,  shifted  his  "rucksack,"  and 
tramped  on.  He  had  still  eight  kilometers  to  go. 

The  melting  snow  was  trickling  down  every  slope  in 
a  thousand  tiny  streams;  in  some  places  the  road  was 
quite  washed  away.  Yet  the  sun  was  not  hot.  It  was 
the  warm  south  wind,  the  "Foehn,"  that  had  been 
blowing  through  the  valleys,  melting  everything  into 
mud.  A  most  unnatural  sort  of  wind,  Edwards  thought, 
as  he  bent  before  it,  holding  his  hat  on  with  the  crook 
of  his  walking-stick ;  at  least  in  a  country  when  one  saw 
snow  and  not  the  hot  sands  of  an  African  desert. 

A  strong  wind  that  a  man  has  to  fight  against  is 
usually  refreshing;  it  whips  color  into  his  cheeks  like 
a  cold  plunge.  But  the  "Foehn"  only  cuts  his  face; 
it  is  dry  and  hot,  intensely  unpleasant  always.  For 
it  brings  with  it  no  reaction,  no  sense  of  manhood 
awakened  in  delight  to  the  struggle.  Only  a  weaken- 
ing of  the  knees,  a  sense  of  depression,  an  ever-recurring 
desire  to  sit  down  and  give  up  the  fight. 

Instead  of  opening  the  pores  of  Edwards'  skin,  its 
warm  breath  closed  them,  drying  the  drops  of  sweat  on 
his  cheeks  and  brow.  His  lips  were  parched;  his  eyes 
stinging.  His  desire  to  shout  and  sing  had  long  since 


34        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

disappeared.  He  felt  weak,  too.  Yet  he  had  no  appe- 
tite for  the  bread-and-ham  that  he  took  from  his  "ruck- 
sack. ' '  The  paper  that  held  it  was  soaked  through  with 
grease;  the  bread  itself  had  absorbed  a  taste  of  his  own 
clothes,  of  the  warm  canvas  of  the  ''rucksack"  as  well. 
He  tossed  the  food  away,  disgusted.  Nor  could  he  find 
a  spring  anywhere.  And  he  had  a  horror  of  the  dirty 
rivulets  of  melting  snow. 

But  he  pushed  on.  And  towards  four  o'clock  he  saw 
the  road  before  him  turn  straight  up  the  slope  of  a  very 
steep  hill.  On  both  sides  the  sky  began  to  close  in, 
cut  off  more  and  more  by  two  lines  of  high  snow-covered 
peaks  that  must  converge  somewhere  in  the  distance  at 
the  head  of  a  narrowing  valley. 

Up  and  up  he  trudged,  the  "Foehn"  roaring  in  the 
trees  that  overhung  the  road,  snapping  a  dry  bough  here 
and  there, — hot,  wearying,  oppressive.  At  last  he 
reached  the  top  of  the  incline,  from  which  he  hoped  to 
catch  some  near  glimpse  of  his  journey's  end.  He  took 
out  his  map.  But  he  had  lost  all  sense  of  distance ;  how 
far  he  had  come  he  could  not  tell.  And,  down  below 
him,  the  road  plunged  into  what  seemed  a  mass  of  never- 
ending  trees.  There  was  no  sign  of  a  village  anywhere. 

He  was  sorely  tempted  to  rest,  only  for  a  moment. 

Yet  he  knew  too  well  the  treachery  of  the  "Foehn." 
Should  he  yield  and  sit  down,  the  effort  to  rise  and 
start  off  again  would  be  wellnigh  impossible.  If  he 
made  it  and  went  on,  the  first  hour  after  his  rest  would 
be  a  constant  struggle  against  an  ever-increasing  sense  of 
fatigue.  If  he  did  not  make  it,  he  would  fall  asleep. 
And  that  meant  waking  suddenly,  after  nightfall,  per- 
haps,— waking  from  some  hideous  terrifying  dream,  such 
as  only  the  "Foehn"  sends  to  those  who  slumber  in  her 
arms. 

But  he  was  very,  very  tired.  The  walk  had  been  too 
long;  even  in  good  weather  it  would  have  tried  his  en- 
durance. He  was  about  to  yield ;  already  he  had  slipped 
one  of  the  straps  of  his  "rucksack"  from  his  shoulder, 
when,  amidst  the  hot  rustling  of  the  wind,  he  heard  from 
somewhere  below  him  the  deep  long-drawn  call  of  cattle 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        35 

that  wait  to  be  milked.  Compared  with  the  harsh  dry 
crackling  of  the  ' '  Foehn, ' '  it  was  so  soft  a  sound,  so  sug- 
gestive of  coolness,  of  refreshing  moisture  and  repose, 
that  Edwards  felt  his  lax  muscles  tighten  as  his  body 
answered  it.  He  refastened  the  straps  of  his  knapsack, 
opened  his  shirt  wide  over  his  breast,  and  stepped  on 
downwards. 

He  had  scarcely  gone  a  hundred  yards  when  the 
woods  became  silent.  The  creaking,  roaring  "Foehn" 
was  hushed.  And  from  the  trees  the  coolness  of  a  quiet 
evening  stole  around  him.  Here,  below  the  crest  of  this 
last  high  hill,  he  was  out  of  the  wind. 

His  eyes  ceased  to  smart;  his  skin  grew  moist.  He 
began  to  whistle  very  softly. 

Now  the  trees  on  his  left  thinned  out,  and  he  looked 
over  some  low  bushes  across  a  level  green  meadow. 
In  the  middle  of  it  stood  an  old  pine-tree;  grouped 
about  were  half  a  dozen  cows,  their  heads  all  stretched 
in  the  same  direction.  Then,  as  Edwards  watched,  fas- 
cinated by  the  gleam  of  the  late  afternoon  light  that 
set  the  moving  figure  in  such  clear  outline  against  the 
grays  and  greens  of  leafless  tree  and  nodding  pine,  a 
man,  or  a  boy,  appeared  from  the  woods,  and  made  his 
way  across  the  meadow  towards  the  group  of  cattle. 
He  wore  no  hat,  his  white,  colorless  shirt  was  open 
to  the  waist,  the  short  leather  Tyrolese  breeches  were 
molded  to  his  firm  limbs  like  wax,  and  even  in  his 
heavy  nailed  shoes  he  walked  with  the  ease  and  grace 
of  a  strong  man,  freeborn. 

He  jodled  once — a  soft  calling  note,  low  down  in  his 
throat. 

And  as  if  to  complete  the  picture  that  had  till  then 
lacked  something,  a  girl  stepped  out  from  beneath  the 
old  pine-tree  in  the  center  of  the  meadow,  and  went  to 
meet  him.  The  dark  green  of  her  simply-made  dress, 
leaving  her  brown  throat  bare  and  showing  the  firm 
outlines  of  her  moving  body,  melted  so  imperceptibly 
into  the  green  of  her  surroundings  that  she  seemed  some 
being  of  the  wood,  some  daughter  of  the  trees,  older  than 
the  Greek  dryads, — and  yet  ever  young, — a  dweller  un- 


36        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

disturbed  among  these  ancient  hills  since  time  began  to 
be. 

They  met,  not  as  lovers;  rather  as  children,  as  play- 
mates. His  hand  went  out  to  meet  hers.  Then  he 
slipped  it  under  his  arm,  and  they  walked  on  together. 
Edwards  could  hear  them  laugh. 

A  dog  barked,  and  the  spell  was  broken. 

Edwards  crossed  the  meadow,  patted  the  shaggy  cur 
that  at  first  seemed  inclined  to  devour  him,  and  asked 
of  the  young  man  the  way  to  Thiersee. 

Both  boy  and  girl  stared  at  him,  not  unkindly,  but 
with  wide-eyed  interest.  At  last  the  girl — she  could  be 
scarcely  more  than  seventeen — nudged  her  speechless 
companion. 

"Franzl,  old  ox,"  she  said.  "Why  don't  you  an- 
swer?" Then  she  added  to  Edwards:  "You'll  go 
straight  ahead.  It's  not  half  an  hour's  walk  from  here. 
But  we  've  got  no  work  to  give.  And  if  you  're  only  beg- 
ging, you  won 't  get  much. ' ' 

"I  am  looking  for  work, — that's  true,"  Edwards  an- 
swered, using  the  broad  dialect.  He  felt  that  it  was 
wrong  to  act  a  part  before  these  two  straightforward 
children.  Yet  he  knew  that  to  declare  himself  now 
would  embarrass  them  to  the  verge  of  hysteria.  ' '  I  was 
told  in  Kufstein  to  ask  at  the  house  of  Frau  Speck- 
bacher." 

"Then  I  can  save  you  the  trouble.  That's  my 
mother.  I  'm  the  Speckbacher  Nani.  I  don 't  know  what 
they're  thinking  of  in  Kufstein  sending  you  to  us!  I 
suppose  it's  because  we're  going  to  have  the  new  Herr 
Doktor  to  do  for.  But  we  can  manage  it  all  ourselves, 
mother  and  me.  There  won't  be  any  work  left  over. 
Except " 

"Nani,"  interposed  her  companion  reproachfully, 
"you  promised  me  the  wood-carrying  and  the  coal." 
Then  he  turned  to  Edwards — "You  get  along  now." 

No  doubt  Edwards  did  look  tired  out.  Yet  he  said 
nothing,  and  would  have  moved  away  had  not  the  young 
man,  with  an  abrupt  change  of  manner,  laid  a  hand 
on  his  arm. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        37 

"We'll  have  some  milk  in  a  minute,"  he  said.  "And 
there's  a  hunk  of  black  bread  left  over  from  noon." 
He  led  Edwards  towards  the  pine-tree.  "Just  the 
same,"  he  added;  "you  can't  do  the  coal-carrying  for 
the  new  Herr  Doktor,  you  know." 

The  next  half-hour,  that  he  spent  stretched  out  on  the 
dry  pine-needles,  will  always  remain  for  Edwards  much 
more  than  a  mere  memory;  it  was  like  some  brightly- 
colored  glimpse  of  a  life  other  than  his  own,  suddenly 
slipped,  by  mistake,  into  his  drab  existence.  The  cool 
of  the  late  afternoon,  the  sweet  breath  of  the  nosing 
cows,  the  penetrating  odor  of  fresh  milk,  and  those 
other  odors  of  health  and  strength  that  were  exhaled 
from  the  bodies  of  his  two  companions,  appealed  to  the 
strongest  of  all  his  seven  senses.  He  seemed  to  be  draw- 
ing in  deep  breaths  from  the  fertile  earth;  an  earth, 
as  Fechner  understood  it ;  a  living,  sensed,  and  sensitive 
being.  He  wondered  that  he  had  ever  found  the  idea 
fantastic.  And  into  his  mind  there  slipped  the  recollec- 
tion of  a  spring  morning  of  his  boyhood,  in  his  grand- 
father's garden,  when  the  flower-beds  had  been  freshly 
turned  over,  and  he  had  lain  with  his  face  close  to  the 
mold,  inhaling  the  smell  of  the  damp,  fresh  soil. 

It  was  all  so  strength-giving,  so  simple,  so  sane. 

Sane,  in  the  old  Latin  sense  of  the  word. 

And  over  all  lay  silence.  His  hosts  came  of  a  stock 
that  do  not  talk  easily  or  much.  It  was  only  when 
Franzl  had  forced  upon  Edwards  the  last  morsel  of 
brown  bread,  presented  on  the  point  of  his  knife,  and 
Nani  had  drained  the  last  drops  of  milk  from  the 
wooden  cup  which  had  served  them  all,  that  tongues 
were  loosened  a  little.  And  Edwards'  insistence  on 
filling  the  young  man's  pipe  with  tobacco  from  his  own 
pouch  did  the  rest. 

He  soon  learned  that  Franzl  was  the  youngest  son  of 
the  Biirgermeister,  and  that  he  was  to  be  the  St.  John 
of  the  Passion  Play;  much  to  his  disgust,  as  his  ambi- 
tions had  been  more  towards  the  role  of  Judas.  People 
always  laughed  at  Judas, — or  at  least  St.  Longinus  with 
his  spear. 


38        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Nani,  the  girl,  was  an  only  child.  In  summer  she 
looked  after  the  Biirgermeister 's  cows,  while  her  mother, 
a  widow,  earned  enough  to  keep  them  through  the  win- 
ter by  working  as  a  waitress  during  the  tourist  season  at 
Kufstein  in  an  hotel. 

' '  It  was  a  dog 's  life  for  her, ' '  Nani  explained.  * '  Every 
autumn,  when  the  mother  came  back  to  Thiersee,  she 
couldn't  walk  for  weeks.  And  she  couldn't  eat  either. 
Just  to  smell  food  cooking  made  her  sick.  And  oh, 
her  poor  feet !  Think  of  it,  always  standing  or  running 
about  for  four  whole  months,  with  never  a  chance  to  sit 
down.  Towards  the  end  of  a  season  she  couldn't  even 
get  her  rest  at  night,  her  feet  and  legs  hurt  her  so. 
Last  year,  when  she  came  home  and  I  took  off  her  stock- 
ings, I — I  just  sat  down  and  cried.  But  she'd  have  had 
to  go  through  it  again  this  year — we  must  live  somehow 
— if  the  new  doctor  hadn't  been  coming.  Everything 
will  be  all  right  now, — now  he's  to  be  here.  Won't  it, 
Franzl?" 

Franzl  nodded.  Then  he  explained  that  the  "Herr 
Doktor"  was  to  live  in  the  old  schoolhouse.  It  had 
two  stories;  the  lower  one  was  used  for  the  school,  and 
on  the  second  there  were  three  rooms,  one  of  which 
had  been  occupied  by  Herr  Joncke,  the  young  school- 
master. The  other  two  had  been  hurriedly  got  ready 
for  the  new  doctor.  The  "Hausmeisterin"  of  the  build- 
ing had  died  the  year  before,  and  Nani's  mother  had 
been  given  her  place.  She  and  Nani  had  janitor's  quar- 
ters on  the  ground  floor. 

"And  I'm  to  carry  up  the  coal,  and  do  anything 
else  the  Herr  Doktor  wants.  Anything.  My  father 
says  we  must  make  him  want  to  stay." 

"And  we  say  so  too,"  interposed  Nani,  in  a  sudden 
burst  of  confidence.  "You  see,"  she  went  on,  with  the 
simple  directness  of  a  child,  "Franzl  and  me,  we've 
always  been  together,  ever  since  we  were  quite  little. 
And  we'ue  going  to  stay  together.  Of  course,  Franzl 
'11  have  to  do  his  three  years  of  military  service  by- 
and-by.  He's  eighteen  now.  And  till  that's  over  we 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        39 

can't  settle  down.  But  we're  promised.  Everybody 
knows  that.  Even  Father  Mathias,  the  priest." 

Edwards  wondered  what  a  physician  was  expected 
to  do  in  the  way  of  arranging  marriages.  But  he  said 
nothing,  and  Franzl  answered  his  unspoken  question. 

"It's  because  Nani's  sister  died,  you  know,"  he  stam- 
mered, turning  his  sun-browned  face  towards  Edwards, 
his  eyes  for  the  moment  clouded  by  the  thought  of  the 
one  mysterious  thing  in  life  that  still  had  power  to 
trouble  his  calm.  "The  baby  died,  too.  And  Nani  was 
there.  It  was  winter.  '  The  Madame, ' 1  the  Oberhof- 
bauerin's  sister,  had  sprained  her  ankle  and  couldn't  get 
to  the  house.  So  she — Nani's  afraid  of  that." 

The  girl  hid  her  face  on  Franzl's  shoulder;  his  arm 
went  gently  round  her  waist,  while  with  his  other  hand 
he  stroked  her  hair. 

"It  was  so  horrid,"  whispered  Nani,  her  voice  muffled 
against  Franzl  's  neck.  ' '  She  screamed  so,  the  poor  Eezi. 
Screamed  and  screamed  and  screamed.  Even  if  she'd 
been  there,  'The  Madame'  said  she  couldn't  have  helped 
much.  There  ought  to  have  been  a  doctor." 

Then,  lifting  her  face  and  looking  up  happily  into 
Franzl's  eyes,  she  added — 

"And  now  there  is  going  to  be  a  doctor.  And  I — and 
I  shan't  be  afraid  any  more." 

A  long  pause  followed  that  Edwards  was  loath  to 
break.  It  was,  however,  growing  late ;  he  must  be  push- 
ing on.  He  got  up. 

"But  we'll  all  go  together,"  protested  Nani.  "We've 
stayed  longer  than  usual  anyhow.  And  you  can't  walk 
any  farther  to-night." 

"There's  plenty  of  room  in  our  hayloft,"  Franzl  sug- 
gested; he  seemed  at  peace  with  the  world  once  more. 
"And  to-morrow  I'll  ask  the  father.  Maybe  he's  got 
work  in  the  fields  for  an  extra  hand  just  now.  Or  per- 
haps," he  added  with  sudden  generosity,  "perhaps  I'd 
let  you  have  the  wood-chopping  for  the  new  doctor. 

i  The  local  midwife  is  usually  called  "The  Madame." 


40        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Not  the  coals,  you  know.    But  the  wood.    Are  you  good 
with  the  ax?    Let's  have  a  look  at  your  paw." 

Before  Edwards  could  move  aside  he  had  caught  one 
of  his  hands  in  his  own  brown,  massive  fist.  He  stared 
down  at  the  white,  carefully  kept  finger-nails,  turned 
up  the  soft  palm,  and  suddenly  became  intensely  em- 
barrassed, as  if  he  had  unwittingly  put  a  fellow-man  to 
shame  by  thoughtlessly  exposing  some  painful  secret. 

"It  don't  make  no  difference,"  he  stammered,  still 
holding  fast  to  Edwards'  hand.  "It's  hard  to  get  a 
living  in  the  city.  Lots  of  the  fellows  doing  'Service' 
have  told  me  that.  And — and  there's  lots  worse  men 
outside  jail  than  there  ever  was  inside.  And  if  you 
like,  you  can  carry  up  the  doctor's  coal." 

Edwards  returned  the  grip  of  his  new  friend's  hand. 
That  was  enough  for  both  of  them. 

But  Nani  broke  the  silence  with  a  sudden  titter  that 
ended  in  a  fit  of  the  giggles.  She,  too,  had  been  gazing  at 
the  new-comer's  hands;  she  had  mustered  him  from  head 
to  foot ;  and  then  the  tittering  had  begun.  And  it  con- 
tinued, at  short  intervals,  all  the  while  they  were  collect- 
ing the  cattle  and  driving  them  slowly  before  them  down 
into  the  valley.  Franzl  threw  her  looks  of  puzzled  re- 
proof;  but  she  paid  no  attention.  She  said  no  single 
word,  made  no  attempt  to  explain;  only  from  time  to 
time  she  would  be  shaken  by  a  new  fit  of  merriment. 
She  would  glance  at  Edwards,  begin  to  giggle,  and  try 
in  vain  to  repress  her  mirth,  until  it  suddenly  broke  out 
into  clear  ringing  peals  of  laughter. 

"Don't  you  mind  her,"  said  Franzl  to  Edwards,  as 
they  walked  along  side  by  side.  "Girls  get  like  that 
sometimes.  Best  way  is  not  to  notice  them. ' ' 

So  the  two  men  fell  behind,  letting  Nani  walk  abreast 
of  the  first  fat  cow,  of  whom  she  seemed  to  be  making 
a  confidante.  For  she  would  rest  her  arms  on  its  broad 
yellow  neck,  when  a  fresh  fit  of  laughter  overcame  her, 
and  whisper  something  in  the  old  cow 's  furry  ear. 

Down  they  all  went  into  the  valley,  along  the  wooded 
road,  the  cow-bells  sounding  rhythmically  in  the  evening 
air,  mingling  with  the  far-off  tinkling  of  other  bells 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        41 

that  reached  them  from  different  parts  of  the  valley, 
from  where  other  herds  were  being  driven  home.  Then 
a  sudden  turn  to  the  left  brought  them  out  of  the  woods. 

Below  them,  at  the  lowest  level  of  the  valley,  lay  a 
tiny  round  lake,  so  still  that  it  reflected  every  line 
of  the  encircling  snow-covered  peaks.  Around  this  sheet 
of  water,  between  it  and  the  end  of  the  road,  on  the 
level  slope  that  ran  down  to  the  water's  edge,  were 
scattered  some  fifty  or  sixty  cottages  and  barns.  Here 
and  there,  to  right  and  left,  on  the  higher  levels  of  the 
foothills,  were  solitary  farmhouses,  whose  windows  shone 
like  flashing  brilliants  in  the  low  beams  of  the  setting 
sun. 

The  sound  of  the  cow-bells  grew  louder,  drew  nearer 
from  all  sides,  rhythmic,  insistent. 

And  then,  mingling  with  them,  from  a  square  white 
tower  came  a  new  dominating  note, — the  church-bell 
ringing  the  "Angelus." 

Franzl  and  Nani  stopped,  the  cattle  stopped,  the  sound 
of  their  bells  ceased.  And  on  the  hills  round  about  the 
noise  of  other  nearing  herds  died  away  also  into  silence. 
Only  the  call  of  the  Angelus  broke  the  sudden  stillness. 

Franzl  crossed  himself,  then  lifted  his  head  and  looked 
skyward.  A  free  man,  looking  steadfastly  and  unafraid 
into  the  face  of  his  God. 

And  Edwards,  neither  strong  nor  free,  lifted  his  eyes 
too.  And  for  the  first  time  in  years  was  unafraid. 


CHAPTEE  V 

THE  last  echo  of  the  Angelus  ceased.  Franzl  moved  for- 
wards with  his  cattle:  from  all  sides  the  deep  metallic 
notes  of  the  cow-bells  began  once  more.  Nani's  mirth- 
ful mood  had  been  sobered,  but  she  still  walked  on  ahead 
in  front  of  the  others. 

At  the  last  turn  of  the  road,  on  the  brow  of  a  steep 
hill  that  overlooked  the  whole  valley,  stood  a  little  way- 
side shrine, — a  square  room  of  whitewashed  brick,  shel- 
tering behind  wooden  bars  a  faded  painting  of  the  Cruci- 
fixion. Nani  made  a  slight  reverence  as  she  passed  it. 
Then  she  stopped,  crossed  to  a  bench  that  stood  ready 
for  chance  worshipers  before  the  shrine  and  looked 
down  on  the  bowed  shoulders  of  a  man.  She  beckoned 
to  Franzl. 

"It's  Kassian,"  she  whispered.  "Drunk  as  usual. 
But  what's  he  doing  here?  His  cows  come  in  by  the 
other  road.  Ought  to  be  ashamed  to  show  himself  to  the 
Savior  in  such  a  condition." 

She  scooped  up  a  handful  of  icy  muddy  water  from 
the  side  of  the  road,  and  let  it  trickle  down  the  bowed 
neck  of  the  sleeper.  He  woke  with  a  start,  got  up  un- 
steadily, wiping  with  a  trembling  hand  the  dirty  water 
from  his  bristling  beard. 

Nani  stood  in  front  of  him,  laughing. 

As  he  recognized  her  a  look  of  blind  animal  rage 
twisted  his  face;  his  eyes  protruded;  his  mouth  opened 
and  shut.  At  last  he  found  his  voice.  And  he  cursed 
the  laughing  girl. 

Edwards  felt  the  hot  blood  leap  to  his  face.  Though 
he  was  anything  but  thin-skinned,  the  brutality  of  the 
man's  words  infuriated  him,  for  he  was  more  angered 
than  shocked  by  this  blasphemous  misuse  of  all  names 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        43 

sacred.  He  turned,  expecting  to  see  Franzl  in  a  white 
heat  of  passion,  ready  to  spring  at  the  other's  throat. 

But  Franzl  was  laughing  too.  The  evil  things  that 
were  pouring  from  this  drunkard's  lips  awakened  in 
him  no  reaction  of  fury  or  even  of  disgust. 

Edwards  was  aghast.  Would  he  ever  understand 
these  people? 

His  astonishment  was  cut  short,  however,  by  a  joyous 
sheut.  The  torrent  of  blasphemy  ceased  and  a  harsh 
voice  cried — 

"Alle  Sieben  Nothelfer!  But  there  is  my  Herr  Dok- 
tor!" 

And  before  Edwards  realized  what  was  happening, 
Zumptobel  Kassian  was  holding  him  by  both  hands, 
capering,  swaying  about,  and  wagging  his  monstrous 
beard  in  mingled  shouts  of  happiness  and  surprise.  The 
whole  man  reeked  of  spirits,  and  the  filth  of  him  was  be- 
yond description. 

' '  Yes,  —  Kreutz-Donnerwetter-nocheinmal,  —  I  knew 
you'd  come  by  this  road.  Every  day  for  the  last  week 
I've  been  here  waiting.  I  must  be  the  first,  you  see — 
must  be — to  make  you  welcome.  'Cause  I'm  the  only 
one  who  knows  what  you  look  like.  Lord  love  you, 
yes, — I  brought  the  schnaps-bottle  with  me.  A  man 
can't  sit  here  all  the  afternoon  and  do  nothing  'cept 
pray.  I  did  pray.  Said  three  whole  rosaries  before  I 
went  to  sleep.  And  yesterday  I  saw  the  cart  with  your 
things.  So  I  knew  you'd  be  along  soon." 

He  turned  to  Franzl  and  Nani,  all  his  anger  vanished 
in  delight. 

"Look  you,  Franzl, — look; — that's  my  Herr  Doktor. 
I  told  him  about  Thiersee.  And  now  mother '11  get  well 
and  be  able  to  work  again.  The  other  doctors  in  the 
city, — they  don 't  know  nothing.  '  No  use ;  can 't  do  any- 
thing for  her,'  they  said.  But  my  doctor,  lie  said — 
the  day  I  went  to  the  moving-pictures  I  told  you  about — 
'she'll  get  better.'  You  did  say  that,  you  know,  Herr 
Doktor.  So  when  I  heard  you  were  really  coming  here, 
I  drove  into  Innsbruck  to  the  Clinic  and  took  mother 
right  away  from  those  others  that  don't  know  nothing. 


And  now  I've  got  her  safe  with  me  at  home,  where  you 
can  cure  her,  so  that  she  can  work  again.  Ain't  that 
fine,  Franzl,  eh?" 

Franzl  had  been  staring  hard  at  Edwards.  Still  puz- 
zled, he  turned  for  help  to  Nani.  But  she  gave  her 
laughter  full  sway  at  last.  "With  hands  on  hips  and 
head  thrown  back  she  fled  laughing  down  the  road. 

"Stupid  boy,"  she  called  over  her  shoulder.  "Oh, 
you  stupid  boy!  'Better  people  inside  jail  than  out!'  ' 

And  on  she  ran  down  into  the  village,  the  sound  of 
her  distant  laughter  gradually  lost  amidst  the  music  of 
the  cow-bells. 

Edwards  saw  a  change  come  over  Franzl 's  face.  His 
skin  was  too  brown  to  show  even  the  deepest  blush,  but 
the  veins  in  his  strong  neck  swelled,  his  hands  clenched. 
He  felt  that  he  had  made  a  fool  of  himself,  and  it  hurt. 

As  he  moved  silently  away,  Edwards  shook  off  Kas- 
sian's  clinging  embrace  and  hastened  to  the  young  man's 
side.  Intuitively  he  dropped  the  broad  dialect,  in  which 
he  had  spoken  hitherto,  and  used  pure  simple  German, 
with  a  hand  on  the  other's  shoulder. 

"Franzl,"  he  said,  "forgive  me.  But  you  made  the 
first  mistake.  After  that,  if  I'd  told  you  who  I  was, 
you'd  have  felt  ashamed." 

"I'm  shamed  now,"  muttered  the  other. 

"Yes;  but  now  we've  had  time  to  get  to  know  each 
other.  Now  I  can  say  I'm  sorry  for  having  deceived 
you.  I  won't  do  it  again." 

"How  can  I  be  sure?" 

The  question  went  through  Edwards  like  a  knife. 
How  often  had  he  asked  it  of  himself.  Where  one  has 
trusted  and  been  deceived,  how  shall  one  learn  to  trust 
again  ? 

"I'll  make  you  feel  sure,"  he  answered,  quite  aware 
of  the  inadequacy  of  his  reply.  "Both  you  and  Nani. 
She  didn't  mind  my  pretending." 

Franzl 's  face  was  still  turned  away.  He  was  not 
quick,  nor  had  he  much  power  of  expression.  "Words 
cost  him  intense  effort. 

"She  recognized  you  after  a  while.     That's  why  she 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        45 

giggled  so.  But  it  don't  seem  like  a  joke  to  me.  I — I 
thought  you'd  had — had  a  hard  time  in  the  city — and 
I— I  felt  sorry." 

Then  he  added  in  a  tone  of  embarrassed  reproach — 
"I'd  even  have  let  you  carry  up  the  coals  for  the — 
for  the " 

He  stammered.  But  his  crude  sense  of  humor  was 
touched;  he  turned  his  face  towards  Edwards  and  his 
lips  relaxed  in  a  smile. 

Edwards  did  not  smile. 

"Perhaps  you  were  right,  after  all,  Franzl,"  he  said. 
"Perhaps  I  have  had  a  hard  time.  You  wanted  to  help 
me.  Help  me,  then.  And  if  I  can  I'll  help  you." 

He  held  out  his  hand.  Franzl 's  big  fist  closed  over 
it.  This  was  a  language  that  he  understood. 

"Come  along,  Kassian,  you  swilling  old  swine,"  he 
said  cheerily.  "We'll  show  the  Herr  Doktor  his  rooms. 
The  cows  know  their  own  way  home  from  here.  Herr 
Doktor,  you  take  him  by  one  arm;  I'll  take  the  other. 
And  we'd  better  take  his  schnaps-bottle  too." 

So  arm-in-arm  with  Franzl,  and  with  the  staggering 
Kassian,  who  shouted  unintelligible  greetings  to  every- 
one they  met,  the  new  Herr  Doktor,  Charles  Southerland 
Edwards,  made  his  entry  into  the  village  of  Thiersee. 

Next  morning,  in  the  schoolhouse,  he  was  sitting  in 
his  bare  room  littered  with  his  belongings,  when  Nani's 
mother,  Frau  Speckbacher,  came  in  to  clear  away  the 
breakfast  things.  She  was  a  tall,  strongly-built  woman 
of  forty  odd,  old  before  her  time;  a  woman,  like  so 
many  of  her  class,  who  live  in  almost  constant  pain, 
and  who  yet  possess  marvelous  evenness  of  tempera- 
ment and  an  unruffled  calm  of  soul. 

She  had  brought  with  her  a  battered  hammer,  and 
began  to  open  the  wooden  cases  that  Edwards  had  sent 
on  from  Kufstein. 

"Might  the  Nani  please  come  in  and  help?"  she 
asked  breathlessly,  her  face  alight  with  pleasure. 
"  'Tisn't  often  we  have  a  chance  to  open  boxes  like  these. 
And  it's  more  fun  than  presents  at  Christmas." 


46        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Edwards  nodded.  Nani  was  soon  at  work.  They 
were  unpacking  his  books  now.  When  he  next  looked 
up  Franzl  had  also  appeared  on  the  scene,  and  was 
busy  blowing  the  dust  from  the  back  of  a  thick  ana- 
tomical atlas.  But  Edwards  was  too  taken  up  with 
several  unexpected  discoveries  to  do  more  than  greet 
the  new-comer  with  a  friendly  nod.  The  three  cases, 
that  Professor  Schroeder  had  left  in  his  room  when  he 
had  come  to  bid  Edwards  good-by,  had  been  sent  in 
with  his  other  things ;  and  now,  as  he  came  to  open  them 
for  the  first  time,  he  was  almost  aghast  at  the  kindness 
and  care  that  must  have  been  spent  on  their  prepara- 
tion. 

Here  and  there  were  little  explanatory  bits  of  paper, 
covered  with  the  Professor's  stiff  handwriting.  The 
first  one  lay  on  top  of  a  very  heavy  case. 

"I  know  you'll  take  good  care  of  these.  I  won't 
hope  that  you  may  have  occasion  to  use  them  all  often. 
But  I  should  not  like  to  think  that  occasion  might  arise, 
and  you  be  unable  to  display  your  surgical  knowledge 
through  the  lack  of  proper  tools.  Don't  imagine  I  am 
giving  you  all  this.  It's  only  a  temporary  loan.  Made 
for  the  sake  of  the  tools  themselves.  They  were  made  to 
be  used." 

And,  packed  carefully  in  straw,  Edwards  found  a 
very  complete  set  of  instruments, — forceps,  clamps,  tro- 
cars, bistouries, — and  such  other  specially  designed  tools 
as  would  make  it  possible  for  him  to  perform  any  of  the 
less  complex  surgical  operations.  They  were  old  instru- 
ments, some  of  them  of  obsolete  pattern,  but  built  with 
a  solidity  and  finish  that  one  often  misses  to-day,  and 
that  rejoiced  Edwards'  heart. 

In  the  deepest  corner  of  the  case  was  a  good-sized 
black  hand-bag.  Tied  to  the  handle  was  another  bit  of 
paper. 

"You'll  be  needing  this,  too,  I  think.  It's  one  of  my 
most  useless  possessions.  Given  to  me  when  I  left  gen- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        47 

eral  practice  for  the   Clinic.     Idiotic  kind  of  a  pres- 
ent!" 

Edwards  slipped  the  catch.  He  felt  like  Prince  Gig- 
lio,  with  the  wonderful  magic  bag  of  the  Fairy  Black- 
stick.  For  here  were  all  things  necessary  for  the  bring- 
ing into  the  world  of  a  new  being.  Not  only  instruments 
but  cleverly  contrived  sterilizators,  rubber  gloves,  aseptic 
material, — everything. 

A  brown  bare  arm  appeared  over  his  shoulder  and 
gently  touched  the  gleaming  surface  of  a  large  pair 
of  forceps.  And,  "Ach  Gott,  wie  schon!"  whispered 
Nani  's  voice.  She  seemed  to  have  none  of  that  horrified 
distress  which  seizes  on  most  women,  and  on  most  men 
too,  at  the  sight  of  what  they  commonly  call  ''knives." 

Edwards  accepted  it  as  a  good  omen. 

''You  must  help  me,"  he  said,  "to  keep  them  clean  and 
bright." 

The  largest  of  the  three  boxes  contained  the  "House- 
hold Apothecary."  Here,  too,  was  a  small  wallet-like 
case,  with  the  Professor 's  card,  ,on  which  was  written — 

"Put  this  in  your  pocket  at  once — at  once.  And 
never  move  abroad  without  it." 

Edwards  did  as  he  was  bidden. 

Franzl  and  Nani  had  now  to  come  and  help.  All 
the  bottles  and  jars  had  to  be  removed  from  the  wooden 
cupboard.  Then  its  shelves  had  to  be  dusted;  a  place 
found  for  it  on  the  wall. 

It  was  a  marvelous  cupboard.  Deep  inside,  at  the 
very  heart  of  it,  was  a  Holy  of  Holies,  where  ten  or 
twelve  small  bottles  had  their  place, — poisons  mostly. 
"When  locked,  this  inner  shrine  formed  part  of  a  larger 
compartment,  that  held  twenty  or  thirty  other  jars. 
This  last  had  doors  of  its  own,  too;  and  these  same 
doors  formed  the  square  center  of  a  still  larger  space, 
divided  up  by  shelves  of  various  heights  and  with  cun- 
ningly contrived  drawers.  Here  were  larger  bottles, 
fatter  jars, — a  noble  collection.  And  the  whole  thing 


48        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

could  be  closed  by  two  outer  folding  panels  that  were 
fastened  with  a  Yale  lock.  On  the  inside  of  these  was 
an  envelope  containing  the  keys.  And  on  the  envelope 
the  Professor  had  written — 

"You  have  not  the  faintest  legal  right  to  keep  a 
Household  Apothecary.  In  doing  so,  you  are  laying 
yourself  open  to  all  sorts  of  grievous  pains  and  pen- 
alties. Therefore,  for  Heaven's  sake,  do  not  take  money 
for  medicines.  Give  it  gratis;  say  it  is  included  in  the 
doctor's  fees,  paid  by  the  community.  And  keep  your 
medicines  locked  up.  With  all  three  keys.  In  Drawer 
No.  45  you'll  find  an  Austrian  Pharmacopoeia.  Also  an 
old  copy  of  an  English  one  that  I  happened  to  have 
lying  round.  Not  that  I  know  anything  myself  about 
this  Drug  Business.  For  the  present  condition  of  the 
outfit  you  can  thank  Magister  Blass  of  the  Pharmacolog- 
ical Institute,  who  takes  an  interest  in  your  welfare. 
He  says  you  were  the  only  man  in  the  lecture-room  who 
did  not  laugh  at  him  when  the  hook  of  his  tunic  caught 
in  the  back  of  his  wig  and  pulled  it  askew.  Let  the  old 
fellow  know  that  you  are  pleased." 

The  last  of  the  three  cases  was  filled  with  various 
matters :  bandages,  aseptic  dressings,  plaster,  drain-tubes 
— all  sorts  of  odds  and  ends.  And  in  sending  him  these 
things — things,  perhaps,  no  longer  of  any  great  value — 
from  the  Clinic  and  his  own  operating-room,  Edwards 
recognized  the  thoughtfulness  of  his  friend.  Nothing1 
here  betrayed  the  newly-fledged  practitioner.  Every- 
thing seemed  to  have  stood  the  test  of  long  use,  and  so 
inspired  confidence. 

In  the  bottom  of  this  last  box  were  countless  bottles. 
One  of  these,  a  ten-liter  jar  with  a  wide  mouth  and  a 
glass  faucet  and  stop-cock  let  in  at  the  base,  bore  a  final 
word  of  advice — 

"You'll  need  small  bottles.  You  won't  find  many  of 
them  lying  about  at  Thiersee.  And  this  big  one  is  for 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        49 

General  Medicine.  To  be  given  freely  when  you  don't 
know  what  else  to  do:  'ut  aliquid  fiet.'  Keep  the  jar 
somewhere  out  of  sight;  and  dump  into  it  whatever  is 
left  over  from  any  of  the  harmless  mixtures  you  pre- 
scribe. Whenever  you  put  in  any  such  remains,  add  one- 
fifth  the  amount  of  alcohol  and  five  times  the  amount  of 
water.  To  begin  with,  you  might  fill  in  about  two  liters 
of  'Aqua  Fontis,'  plus  enough  Chinin  to  make  it  taste 
bitter,  a  little  something  to  color  it  brown,  and  half  of 
the  square  black  bottle  that  you'll  find  somewhere  in 
this  case.  The  other  half  keep  for  yourself,  to  drink 
sometimes  with  your  coffee. 
' '  And  so,  Good  luck  to  you. ' ' 

The  bottle  in  question  was  an  excellent  brand  of  Kiim- 
mel.  And  lying  beside  it,  in  an  air-tight  tin,  was  a 
"kilo"  of  freshly  ground  fragrant  coffee,  on  which  was 
written,  in  a  hand  strange  to  Edwards,  "Frau  Professor 
Schroeder  joins  her  husband  in  best  wishes  for  your 
venture. ' ' 

Edwards  was  overwhelmed.  How  kind  these  people 
were!  And  he  had  never  suspected  that  they  took  the 
slightest  interest  in  him.  He  must  write  and  thank 
them  both  at  once. 

But  by  this  time  the  morning  hours  had  passed. 
Edwards  was  beginning  to  wonder  how  and  where  he 
was  to  eat,  when  Frau  Speckbacher  called  to  him  ex- 
citedly from  the  window. 

"Herr  Doktor, — the  Herr  Pfarrer  comes.  Jesses- 
Maria,  how  dirty  we  all  are!  Here,  you  two  children, 
be  off  now." 

Edwards  went  to  the  window  and  looked  out.  The 
dingy  old  schoolhouse  stood  apart  by  itself  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  village,  almost  on  the  edge  of  the  level 
land,  just  before  it  fell  away  downwards  towards  the 
shore  of  the  lake  below.  From  his  window  he  could 
overlook  almost  all  the  houses  on  this  side  of  Thiersee, 
could  even  see  across  the  little  sheet  of  water  to  the 
farms  on  the  farther  shore,  and  could  follow  the  whole 


50        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

line  of  the  highroad  that  wound  upwards  from  the  vil- 
lage and  passed  the  schoolhouse  door  before  disappearing 
into  the  woods  that  surrounded  the  valley. 

Up  this  road  a  single  figure  was  slowly  making  its 
way. 

And  a  less  prepossessing  figure  Edwards  had  never 
seen. 

A  very  small  man,  scarcely  five  feet  high,  dressed  in 
shapeless  baggy  clothes:  black  trousers  that  scarcely 
reached  the  tops  of  his  bulging  elastic-sided  boots,  a  loose 
black  coat  buttoned  up  to  the  chin,  no  sign  of  a  col- 
lar, great  blue  goggles,  and  an  ancient  black  straw  hat 
that  was  pushed  far  back  on  a  tangled  mane  of  long 
iron-gray  hair. 

And  fat!  Never  had  Edwards  imagined  such  shape- 
less, monstrous  obesity. 

The  figure  looked  up,  saw  Edwards  at  the  window,  and 
waved  its  hand. 

' '  Griiss  Gott,  Herr  Doktor ! "  it  called.  The  voice  was 
sweet  and  strong, — an  unusually  attractive  voice.  "  I  've 
come  to  take  you  to  dinner.  Won't  you  join  me  down 
here  and  save  me  the  journey  up?" 

He  made  an  expressive  gesture  that  underlined  the 
antithesis  between  the  steep  steps  before  him  and  his 
own  round  unwieldy  body. 

Edwards  bowed  a  little  stiffly.  He  would  be  down 
in  an  instant,  he  called  back.  But  he  made  no  haste. 
It  seemed  to  him  as  if  the  priest  were  not  treating  him 
with  proper  respect;  he  ought  to  have  come  up  and 
made  a  formal  call.  Perhaps  he  knew  that  Edwards 
had  no  legal  right  to  practice,  and  took  this  means  of 
making  him  feel  that  he  was  not  to  be  treated  as  an 
equal.  Besides,  Edwards  did  not  like  priests.  He  had 
known  too  many  of  them,  and  too  much.  At  his  old 
school,  and  afterwards. 

Again  the  priest's  voice  hailed  him  from  below. 

"Herr  Doktor,— ich  bitte 

Ah,  he's  coming  up  after  all,  thought  Edwards;  he 
sees  that  he 's  made  a  mistake.  But  the  clear  voice  went 
on — 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        51 

"If  you've  got  an  Innsbruck  paper  bring  it  along. 
I'll  be  greatly  obliged." 

Edwards  had  an  Innsbruck  paper.  On  his  table  lay 
also  an  old  copy  of  "The  Daily  Mail."  He  took  that; 
why,  he  did  not  know  exactly.  Perhaps  with  a  desire 
to  make  the  priest  feel  his  inferiority  in  that  he  could 
not  read  English,  while  he,  Edwards,  could.  Of  such 
unreasoned  subconscious  actions  is  our  life  compact. 

"Frau  Speckbacher, "  he  called,  as  he  went  out  into 
the  lower  hall,  "I'm  going  to  dinner  now  with  the  Herr 
Pfarrer." 

Frau  Speckbacher,  with  Franzl  and  Nani  peering  over 
her  shoulder  from  the  door  of  the  schoolroom,  surveyed 
Edwards  with  unveiled  disapproval. 

"But  the  Herr  Doktor  has  forgotten  to  change  his 
clothes,"  she  said. 

Edwards  wore  his  old  riding-breeches  and  rough  coat 
in  which  he  had  made  his  journey  yesterday.  His  only 
change  had  been  a  fresh  shirt,  a  collar,  and  a  bright 
tie.  And  on  this  tie  the  good  Frau's  eyes  rested. 

"What's  the  matter  with  these?"  demanded  Edwards, 
flushing. 

He  was  intensely  sensitive  to  interference  with  his 
small  personal  habits.  In  Innsbruck  he  had  changed 
his  room  several  times,  because  his  landlady  had  seen 
fit  to  suggest  some  slight  alteration  in  his  conduct,  dress, 
or  acquaintance.  He  did  not  realize  that  such  "inter- 
ference, "  as  he  called  it,  was  merely  the  expression  of  an- 
other's  kindly  interest  in  himself.  His  one  idea  had 
been  that  he  must  be  "Master  in  the  House";  criticism 
of  any  kind  goaded  him  to  fury.  He  had  left  his  last 
quarters  because  the  husband  of  his  landlady  had  dared 
to  remonstrate  about  the  three  pairs  of  inoculated  guinea- 
pigs  that  he  kept  under  his  bed. 

Now  it  flashed  across  his  mind  that,  in  the  past,  he 
had  always  been  too  friendly  with  his  dependents.  If 
he  were  to  remain  the  "Herr  im  Hause"  here — (already 
he  had  been  contemplating  the  acquisition  of  a  new 
lot  of  guinea-pigs), — he  must  show  that  he  would  not 
put  up  with  interference  of  any  kind. 


52        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

So  he  stalked  past  Frau  Speckbacher,  ignoring  her 
completely. 

But  at  the  door  he  stopped.  Much  as  he  rebelled 
under  criticism,  he  dreaded  "hurt  feelings"  still  more. 
He  could  not  bear  to  leave  these  people  with  that  look 
of  distress  in  their  eyes.  Yield  to  their  criticisms  he 
would  not;  but  their  distress  should  yield  to  his  friend- 
liness. 

"Well,  Frau,"  he  demanded,  "what's  wrong?" 

"The  Herr  Doktor  must  forgive  me.  But  the  Herr 
Doktor  has  forgotten  that  after  dinner  he  might  be 
called  to  see  a  sick  person."  Then,  as  Edwards  stared 
at  her,  uncomprehending,  she  added:  "I  will  lay  out 
the  Herr  Doktor 's  clothes  on  his  bed ;  then  he  can  change 
at  once  when  he  comes  back." 

* '  The  Herr  Doktor  can  have  all  confidence  in  mother, ' ' 
put  in  Nani  over  her  mother 's  shoulder.  ' '  She  has  seen 
many  fine  gentlemen  at  the  hotel  in  Kuf stein." 

Franzl  interposed.  His  sympathies  were  with  the  puz- 
2led  Edwards. 

"What's  the  sense  of  all  this  bother?  I  don't  see 
why " 

"You  don't  of  course.  But  the  Herr  Doktor  does. 
Only  he  has  many  more  important  things  to  think  about. 
And  it  is  our  place  to  think  of  the  little  things  for  him. 
I  ask  thee,  Franzl,  what  would 'st  say  if  the  Herr  Pfarrer 
came  to  give  thee  Extreme  Unction  in  short  trousers  and 
a  red  cravat?" 

"Frau  Speckbacher,"  Edwards  snapped  his  words 
out  angrily,  "I  am  master  here,  and  I  wear  what  I 
like.  Do  you  understand?" 

As  he  slammed  the  door  behind  him,  Nani  looked  up 
questioningly  into  her  mother's  face. 

' '  Thou  wilt  lay  out  the  clothes  on  his  bed, ' '  her  mother 
answered.  "I  will  show  thee  the  right  ones.  Other- 
wise,— well,  thou  knowest  what  people  will  say.  That 
we  don't  know  how  to  take  care  of  him.  Then  we  may 
lose  our  place  here,  and  I'd  have  to  go  out  again  as 
waitress.  Me  with  my  bad  foot,  that  hurts  me  so." 

"That  thou  shalt  never  do,  mother  dear,"  protested 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        53 

Nani.  "Leave  it  all  to  me.  Perhaps  I  can  manage 
him." 

Meanwhile  Edwards,  in  a  very  ruffled  temper,  had 
joined  the  waiting  priest.  The  little  man  greeted  him 
with  outstretched  hands.  Of  his  cordiality  there  could 
be  no  doubt. 

"Ach,  lieber  Herr  Doktor,"  he  cried,  "welcome  to 
Thiersee.  The  day  of  your  coming  is  marked  with  a 
white  stone.  I  was  so  glad  to  hear  you  had  arrived. 
'Laetatus  sum  in  his  quag  dicta  sunt  mihi.'  Kassian 
spread  the  news  last  night  in  a  lucid  interval  between 
drinks.  But  I  told  the  people  to  keep  away.  They'd 
have  rushed  in  shoals  to  look  at  you  this  morning.  So 
I  put  a  'taboo'  on  the  schoolhouse.  No  one  was  to 
approach  within  a  hundred  yards  of  it  until  I  had  made 
the  first  visit.  And,  in  spite  of  their  devouring  curiosity, 
they  've  kept  away.  Even  the  children.  Oh,  I  make  Big 
Medicine  too,  you  see." 

Edwards  felt  his  sense  of  formal  animosity  begin  to 
dissolve.  There  was  something  very  charming  about 
this  strange,  obese,  little  man,  something  that  escaped 
analysis.  He  began  to  make  some  commonplace  speech 
of  thanks. 

"How  delightfully  you  speak  German,"  interrupted 
the  priest.  His  pudgy  little  hand  kept  patting  Ed- 
wards' arm  as  they  walked  on.  "Not  at  all  like  a 
German- American,  Deo  Gratias.  Your  clear  consonants 
sound  as  if  they  had  come  from  Hanover. ' ' 

Edwards  felt  a  glow  of  pleasure.  Although  he  often 
spoke  carelessly,  he  prided  himself  on  the  purity  of  his 
accent  when  he  took  pains;  and  the  surest  way  to  his 
heart  was  to  compliment  him  on  his  German. 

"I  lived  for  a  year  in  Hanover,"  he  said,  "as  a  boy. 
A  very  happy  time  in  my  life  it  was,  too." 

The  fat  little  hand  patted  his  arm  approvingly  again. 

"Aha,  I  was  right  then.  And  we  will  speak  the 
tongue  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  together,  you  and  I. — But 
not  in  public."  He  held  up  a  warning  finger.  "That 
would  be  quite  ruinous.  For  the  good  folk  here  would 
not  understand  us;  and.  what  they  don't  understand  they; 


54        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

most  thoroughly  hate.  They're  good  haters.  Good 
friends,  too.  You  know  how  the  hymn  goes :  '  Treue  1st 
Tiroler  Brauch.'  Only,  as  a  rule,  they're  slow  to  give 
their  confidence.  Once  they've  given  it,  however,  they 
stick  to  what  they've  given.  That's  their  strength, — and 
their  weakness.  A  friend  can't  do  them  wrong.  He 
may  swindle  them  out  of  money,  good  name,  what  you 
like.  But  they  won't  see  it,  won't  believe  it;  they  shut 
their  eyes  and  go  on  trusting  still.  And  if  they  don't 
or  won't  or  can't  give  you  their  confidence,  then  you 
may  be  the  holiest,  noblest,  most  charitable  soul  in  the 
world,  yet  you'll  get  naught  from  them  but  dislike, 
hatred,  annoyance.  Oh,  did  you  bring  the  paper  ? ' ' 

Without  waiting  for  an  answer  he  drew  it  out  of 
Edwards'  pocket. 

"I'm  so  sorry,  Hochwiirden,"  *  Edwards  stammered. 
"I  must  have  made  a  mistake.  Took  the  wrong  paper 
from  my  table." 

Not  for  worlds  would  he  have  admitted,  even  to  him-, 
self,  the  motive  that  had  impelled  him  to  bring  an  Eng- 
lish newspaper  instead  of  the  German  one. 

"That's  a  pity.  The  Biirgermeister  likes  to  get  the 
news  at  dinner-time.  I  usually  read  him  the  best  bits. 
— He's  not  exactly  quick  at  reading  himself.  An  able 
old  man  though,  as  you'll  see.  With  a  natural  ability 
for  the  business  part  of  farming. — And  my  own  English 
is  more  than  a  little  rusty.  Hum-m-m — what  does  this 
sentence  here  mean?  I  get  the  sense  of  the  leading 
article  as  far  as  that.  But  how  stupid  of  me!  Of 
course,  you  can  translate  it  for  the  Biirgermeister.  To 
have  the  latest  news  from  England  will  tickle  his  sense 
of  importance." 

Edwards  looked  down  at  the  worn  black  straw  hat, 
far  below  his  shoulder,  bent  over  the  fluttering  pages  of 
the  newspaper. 

What  was  this  type  of  priest  doing  here  1 

He  knew  well  enough  the  kind  of  man  he  had  ex- 

i  "Hochwtirden,"  the  title  by  which  all  priests  are  addressed,  like 
"Your  Reverence." 

"Herr  Pfarrer"  is  the  title  of  a  parish  priest. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        55 

pected  to  find.  Either  a  young  ecclesiastic  in  his  first 
cure,  to  whom  such  a  remote  nest  as  Thiersee  was  only 
a  momentary  makeshift  till  something  better  turned  up ; 
or  a  dull,  older  man,  himself  a  peasant,  rooted  in  the 
soil,  and  so  long  forgotten  at  his  post  that  he  had  sunk 
to  the  common  level,  or  even  below  it.  And  here  at  his 
side  was  this  strange  kindly  creature,  well  past  fifty 
surely,  yet  apparently  not  embittered,  but  at  peace  with 
his  surroundings,  and  alive  to  interests  that  bound  him 
to  the  outer  world  of  men  and  things. 

Edwards  put  his  thoughts  into  words. 

The  result  surprised  him,  for  the  priest 's  hand  dropped 
from  his  arm;  the  flow  of  his  pleasant  voice  was  sud- 
denly sealed;  and  he  glanced  up  sideways  at  Edwards, 
as  if  trying  to  measure  the  extent  of  the  mistake  he  had 
made  in  saying  too  much  to  an  utter  stranger. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  stammered  Edwards. 

' '  There 's  nothing  to  beg  my  pardon  about, ' '  the  priest 
protested.  ' '  You  must  forgive  me  for  babbling  unduly. 
But  your  coming  has  been  much  in  my  thoughts.  One 
gets  very  lonely  here  sometimes.  And  there  is  no  one 
with  whom  one  can  talk  about  matters  of  any  real  in- 
terest, except  perhaps  the  Schroeders. ' ' 

"Not  Professor  Schroeder,"  interrupted  Edwards. 

"Yes,  he  and  his  wife.  They're  always  at  Castle 
Liebenegg  in  the  summer.  They  rent  it.  Only  it's  a 
mighty  long  ride  from  Thiersee,  and  for  a  man  of  my — 
my  caliber  not  an  expedition  to  be  undertaken  lightly, 
but  soberly,  advisedly,  and  in  the  fear  of  God — like 
matrimony." 

This  last  sentence  he  had  added  in  English,  an  Eng- 
lish that  creaked  a  little  from  long  disuse,  but  good 
English,  Edwards  noted — the  English  of  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer. 

"You'll  be  hungry,"  he  heard  the  priest  say,  "and 
here's  our  inn — our  Heaven  and  our  Hell.  You  11  un- 
derstand that  soon.  And  here's  our  Burgermeister. 
too." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  inn  or  "Gasthaus,"  a  low  two-storied  dwelling, 
somewhat  larger  than  the  surrounding  cottages,  was 
set  well  back  from  the  road  and  separated  from  it  by 
a  pleasant  garden.  The  neatly  covered  beds  were  still 
empty  of  flowers;  but  here  and  there  tiny  shoots  of 
green  grass  were  visible,  and  the  sun  poured  down  in 
its  noonday  strength.  Over  the  porch  swung  a  huge 
creaking  sign;  a  very  dilapidated  wooden  Dragon,  of 
monstrous  proportions,  surmounted  by  a  tiny  Saint 
George,  whose  horse  was  not  much  larger  than  the 
Dragon's  one  remaining  ear. 

"Zum  Drachen"  was  the  inn's  name.  Its  owner  was 
known  as  the  "  Drachen- Wirt."  Indeed,  it  seemed  to 
Edwards  that  most  people  in  Thiersee  had  no  family 
names  at  all.  The  owners  of  property  were  called  after 
their  farms:  "Der  Geschwandlerbauer. "  Their  wives 
and  daughters,  too:  "Die  Oberdorfbauer's  Rosi." 
While  those  who  held  some  official  position  in  the  com- 
munity were  addressed  by  their  titles.  The  artisans  and 
the  hired  men  alone  had  family  names:  "Strumpl- 
Jonas,""Gipfl-Marie." 

The  Herr  Burgermeister,  whose  farm  lay  farther  up 
the  valley  on  the  right,  was  sitting  stolidly  in  the  sun, 
at  a  freshly  spread  table  that  stood  in  front  of  the  inn 
on  a  piece  of  clean  flagging.  A  square-built,  square- 
faced  man,  dressed  in  heavy  homespun,  with  a  huge 
silver  chain,  on  which  countless  small  silver  ornaments 
dangled,  swinging  magnificently  over  his  green  waist- 
coat with  its  large  horn  buttons.  He  was  clean-shaven; 
that  is,  he  would  be  clean  shaven  on  Sunday,  like  the 
priest.  To-day  was  Saturday. 

"Herr  Burgermeister,  our  new  Herr  Doktor,"  said  the 
priest. 

SG 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        57 

The  Biirgermeister  nodded  and  stretched  out  a  mas- 
sive fist  to  grasp  Edwards'  hand. 

' '  Got  the  Innsbruck  paper  ?  "  he  demanded. 

tf Better  than  that — finer  far,''  interposed  Father 
Mathias.  ''The  Herr  Doktor  has  brought  an  English 
paper.  He  will  translate  it  to  us.  The  latest  news 
straight  from  England.  No  other  village  except  ours 
has  that." 

The  Biirgermeister  turned  his  keen  gray  eyes  on  Ed- 
wards. 

"We  used  to  read  a  lot  about  the  Boer  war,"  he  said. 
' '  You  '11  not  be  an  Englishman,  I  do  hope. ' ' 

Edwards  protested  so  volubly  and  in  such  broad  dia- 
lect, that  the  look  of  momentary  distrust  faded  from 
the  other's  face. 

Meanwhile  the  Drachen-Wirt  had  appeared,  a  bearded 
fussy  little  man  with  shaking  hands  and  unsteady  gait, 
followed  by  ' '  Drachen-Wirt  's  Rosine,"  his  daughter. 
The  latter  began  to  serve  the  dinner,  taking  care  to 
lean  lightly  against  Edwards'  shoulder  as  she  did  so. 
Edwards  shrank  away.  The  girl  was  not  ill-looking, 
but  she  had  discarded  the  local  dress  for  such  cheap 
finery  as  she  had  brought  from  her  service  as  a  waitress 
at  the  "Grauer  Bar"  in  Innsbruck.  And  she  used  an 
abundance  of  some  cheap  perfume  that  was  sickening. 
If  her  father  was  Gluttony  in  the  catalogue  of  the 
Seven  Deadly  Sins  at  Thiersee,  she  was  Lasciviousness. 
Not  from  any  inner  necessity  of  their  natures,  but  both 
purely  in  the  way  of  business. 

Edwards  soon  forgot  them,  however.  Although  it  was 
still  March,  it  was  not  too  cold  to  eat  out  of  doors  in 
the  warm  sun;  and  his  companions  soon  put  him  at  his 
ease.  Nor  did  the  food  seem  so  bad.  Merely  rather 
coarse,  and  served  in  huge  portions.  But  he  had  little 
time  to  think  of  it,  for  his  London  paper  happened  to 
contain  an  article  on  modern  grain-growing  in  the 
Canadian  North- West,  illustrated  with  a  few  blurred  pic- 
tures; and  his  translation  of  it  held  the  interest  of  the 
Biirgermeister,  who  kept  him  at  his  task  all  through  the 
meal.  When  they  had  finished  and  had  lighted  their 


58        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

pipes,  the  Biirgermeister  leaned  back  in  the  shadow  and 
was  soon  breathing  heavily. 

"The  one  local  habit  that  I  cannot  acquire,"  said  the 
priest,  shrugging  his  fat  shoulders.  "A  pity,  too.  Be- 
cause so  many  of  us,  who  grow  old  here,  die  in  our  after- 
dinner  sleep.  It's  then  that  a  stroke  hits  us.  But  I 
shall  have  to  meet  mine  somewhere  else,  and  with  open 
eyes. ' ' 

"For  whom  is  the  vacant  chair?"  asked  Edwards. 
Their  table  was  set  for  four  people. 

"For  the  schoolmaster,  Emil  Joncke.  A  mere  lad. 
Not  twenty  yet.  He  graduated  from  the  Innsbruck 
Normal  College  last  year;  and  now  here  he  is,  stuck 
in  this  valley,  with  some  sixty  odd  children  of  different 
ages,  whom  he  has  to  teach,  all  in  one  large  room.  Un- 
til you  came,  he  was  quite  alone  in  the  schoolhouse ;  cooked 
for  himself,  too,  as  he  couldn  't  afford  a  servant.  He  '11  be 
back  soon.  Holidays  are  almost  over.  He  usually  eats 
with  us,  once  or  twice  a  week.  I  wonder  what  you'll 
make  of  him. ' ' 

A  sudden  sense  of  confidence  in  this  unusual  ecclesiastic 
came  over  Edwards,  begotten  of  the  quiet  of  the  after- 
noon and  of  the  sense  of  peace  that  seemed  to  rest  over 
everything.  One  heard  nothing  except  the  far-off  shout 
of  some  voice,  a  plowman  calling  to  his  team,  or  the 
soft  clucking  of  the  landlord's  fowls  that  wandered  in 
and  out  among  the  guests'  feet,  searching  for  fallen 
crumbs.  Opposite  sat  the  sleeping  'Biirgermeister,  his 
deeply-lined  face  relaxed,  almost  childlike.  Around  them 
shone  the  warm  sun;  above  on  all  sides,  rose  the  uneven 
lines  of  the  snow-covered  mountains.  Only  now  and 
then,  from  inside  the  house,  came  a  single  jarring  note; 
the  shrill  hard  laughter  of  Drachen-Wirt  's  Rosine,  as  she 
served  some  unseen  guest. 

Edwards  leaned  across  the  table  towards  the  priest. 

' ' Hochwiirden, "  he  said,  "you  have  made  me  very 
welcome.  But  I'm  such  a  stranger.  Indeed,  I  feel  now 
how  mad  it  was  for  me  to  come  at  all.  Will  you  not 
help  me?  Tell  me  about  these  people  of  yours,  so  that 
I  shan't  make  such  a  tremendous  lot  of  blunders." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        59 

' '  You  '11  have  to  learn  by  making  blunders,  I  'ra  afraid. 
But  that  won't  do  any  harm.  And  command  me  in  all 
things.  I  live  in  that  minute  white  box  next  the  church. 
To-morrow's  Sunday.  Come  in  after  mass.  You're  a 
Catholic  I  trust?" 

Edwards  nodded,  so  he  went  on — 

"Not  that  I'm  worrying  over  the  state  of  your  soul. 
Not  I!  Only  you've  got  to  conform  here.  You  must. 
If  the  people  aren't  to  see  you  at  mass  on  Sundays,  you 
might  as  well  pack  up  and  get  out  now.  Our  entire 
village  life  begins  at  and  centers  round  the  altar.  If 
you  intend  to  be  a  part  of  that  life,  you've  got  to  be  at 
the  altar  too.  Oh,  it  doesn't  make  any  difference  what 
you  believe  and  what  you  don't.  No  growing  man  can 
live  with  the  god  of  his  childhood  any  more  than  he  can 
wear  his  baby  shoes.  For  all  of  us,  who  aren  't  mentally 
petrified,  our  gods  die.  But  that's  no  reason  why  we 
should  defile  their  peaceful  graves." 

Edwards  stared  at  his  companion,  at  the  round  almost 
featureless  face  with  the  great  blue  goggles.  In  his  un- 
lovely body  there  was  an  unusual  mind;  and  those  weak 
red-rimmed  eyes  had  a  wide  outlook  into  the  world  of 
gods  and  men. 

"It's  all  so  different  from  what  I  expected,"  he  stam- 
mered. ' '  I  really  don 't  know  what  I  did  expect.  Some- 
thing like  a  plague-stricken  city,  I  suppose;  with  the 
sick  lying  about  in  the  streets,  shrieking  in  vain  for  the 
help  that  never  came.  A  sort  of  hell.  A  harsh  cruel 
climate.  Everywhere  pain,  deformity,  death.  And 

I "  He  laughed  awkwardly;  "I  thought  I  was,  as  it 

were,  leading  a  forlorn  hope,  rushing  into  the  teeth  of 
destruction,  bringing  succor — perhaps  healing.  Now, — 
now,  I  am  here."  He  swept  a  gesture  with  his  arm  that 
included  the  entire  peaceful  scene  around  them.  "Not 
even  the  priest — forgive  me — as  I  thought  to  find  him; 
a  fanatic  of  the  Dark  Ages  or  a  stupid  sensualist,  who 
would  hinder  me,  or  at  least  mock  me  behind  my  back. 
Instead  of  that — you.  Instead  of  my  expected  Hades — 
this  peaceful  Paradise." 

The  priest  shook  his  head  sadly. 


60        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"Wait  a  bit,  my  son,"  he  said.  "There  are  other 
rooms  in  this  inn.  You  can't  see  much  from  where  you 
sit.  But  I 

He  was  cut  short  by  the  crash  of  falling  glass  from 
inside  the  house.  Then  came  the  sound  of  a  table  over- 
turned, of  loud  snarling  voices,  and  the  shrill  remon- 
strances of  a  woman. 

The  priest  beckoned  to  Edwards. 

"I've  been  waiting  for  this,"  he  said.  "  'Twouldn't 
be  Saturday  afternoon  else.  Look  in  here,  Herr  Doktor. 
This  Paradise  of  yours  has  a  backdoor  into  Hell." 

With  Edwards  close  behind  him,  he  had  pushed  open 
the  large  window  that  gave  inwards  on  the  guest-room 
of  the  Drachen  Inn.  A  current  of  air  streamed  out, 
so  laden  with  things  evil  that  Edwards  gasped. 

"You  get  it,  do  you?"  demanded  the  priest.  "That's 
what  I  breathe  in  the  confessional,  my  son.  Don 't  move. 
You  may  be  needed." 

For  an  instant  Edwards  felt  as  if  he  must  fight  for 
breath  or  be  strangled.  The  air  of  that  inner  room  was 
saturated  with  a  concentrated  essence  of  all  the  deadly 
sins.  Not  only  gluttony  and  lust ;  but  envy,  bitter,  long- 
nursed  hatred,  instant,  red-eyed  murder.  It  was  an  at- 
mosphere steeped  in  a  reek  of  animal  odors;  sweating 
bodies,  evil  breaths,  diseased  skins,  unwashed  clothes; 
an  atmosphere  sucked  in  and  exhaled  over  and  over 
again,  shot  through  with  clouds  of  bad  tobacco,  redolent 
with  tHe  sharp  stench  of  bad  spirits;  so  foul  that  the 
clean  outer  air  seemed  to  shrink  away  from  the  contam- 
ination of  its  touch. 

The  room  within  was  but  dimly  lighted.  In  the  middle 
of  it  lay  an  overturned  table ;  broken  glasses  shimmered 
on  the  floor,  snapping  under  the  heavy  boots  of  some 
twenty  men,  who  had  crowded  around  a  shadowy  mov- 
ing mass,  that  struggled  to  and  fro  across  the  muddy 
floor. 

Kosine  had  fled  to  the  top  of  a  table,  where  she  stood 
with  lifted  skirts,  displaying  her  red  silk  garters.  Yet 
even  this  attraction,  which  seldom  failed  of  success,  went 
a-begging  here.  The  men  paid  no  attention.  That 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        61 

angered  her.  She  was  not  used  to  being  neglected,  even 
for  the  lust  of  blood.  She  lifted  her  shrill  voice. 

"  Father, — father, — come  and  stop  the  fight.  Franzl 
has  got  his  knife  out. ' ' 

As  if  he  had  been  waiting  for  some  such  signal,  the 
landlord  appeared  in  the  door  of  the  next  room.  Be- 
hind him  towered  a  huge  man  with  mighty  shoulders, 
on  which  was  set  the  small  round  head  of  an  idiotic 
child. 

"Clear  out  of  this  all  of  you,"  he  shouted.  "I'll 
have  no  knives  here.  Stop,  I  say,  or  I'll  make  Anderl 
throw  you  out.  And  there'll  be  no  more  schnaps  served 
to  anyone." 

This  last  threat  seemed  to  have  some  effect.  The  men 
who  had  been  watching  the  fight  went  softly  back  to  their 
places  at  the  tables  in  the  four  shadowy  corners.  And 
from  the  struggling  mass  on  the  floor  a  figure  half  rose  to 
its  feet.  It  lifted  its  face  towards  the  triumphant  Rosine. 

' '  You,  Bosi, ' '  it  said ;  ' '  that  was  a  lie.  I  ain  't  got  no 
knife  at  all. Oh,  you  swine! " 

As  the  speaker  had  turned  towards  Eosina,  leaving 
himself  unprotected,  the  other  dim  figure  had  attacked 
him  from  behind.  Edwards  only  caught  sight  of  a  head 
that  appeared  from  the  shadow  at  Franzl's  shoulder,  and 
that  seemed  to  bow  itself  as  if  to  whisper  in  his  ear. 

' '  You  swine — you  swine ! ' ' 

Franzl's  furious  yell  echoed  through  the  house.  Then 
it  fell  to  a  frightened  whimper.  With  one  hand  clasped 
to  the  side  of  his  head  he  staggered  to  his  feet,  opened 
the  front  door  and  swayed  out  into  the  sunlight,  where 
he  dropped  into  the  chair  in  which  Edwards  had  been 
sitting. 

And  after  him,  propelled  by  a  blow  from  Anderl's 
heavy  first,  came  his  opponent.  It  was  Kassian.  His 
clothes  were  covered  with  dust  and  dirt ;  his  hands  were 
bleeding,  cut  by  the  broken  glass  on  the  floor;  his  great 
beard  was  matted  with  blood.  There  was  blood  too  on  his 
lips.  He  stood  swaying  on  the  door-step,  blinded  by  the 
sun. 

Edwards  hurried  to  Franzl's  side.    The  young  man 


62        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

was  rocking  to  and  fro,  whimpering  with  pain.  And 
between  the  fingers  of  his  hand  that  he  kept  pressed 
tightly  to  the  side  of  his  head,  thin  streams  of  blood 
were  trickling.  At  Edwards'  touch  he  looked  up, 
brushed  the  hair  from  his  eyes,  and  pointed  with  his 
free  hand  at 


"Herr  Doktor  —  it  wasn't  fair.  I'd  stopped  fighting. 
And  then,  see  what  he  did  —  the  swine!" 

He  removed  his  hand  for  a  moment.  The  lobe  and 
part  of  the  cartilage  of  his  ear  had  been  bitten  away. 

Edwards  turned  a  horrified  face  towards  the  priest, 
who  was  quietly  looking  on. 

"Quite  a  frequent  occurrence,  my  dear  sir,"  nodded 
the  priest.  "  Noses  as  welL  Yes,  especially  noses. 
You'll  find  constant  opportunities  for  plastic  opera- 
tions." 

But  the  look  of  distress  in  Edwards'  eyes  had  passed. 
Here  was  a  wound  to  be  properly  cared  for.  And  he 
loved  wounds,  healing  wounds,  as  other  men  love  grow- 
ing flowers.  In  the  Clinic  the  nurses  had  often  said  that 
the  most  hopeless  tissues  seemed  to  know  and  answer  to 
his  touch. 

**A  basin  of  hot  water,"  he  called  through  the  win- 
dow, "and  a  clean  toweL  You,  Kassian,  come  and  sit 
down  here  till  I  Ve  done  patching  up  FranzL  Your  turn 
11  come  next." 

Inside  the  house  there  was  a  great  running  to  and 
fro.  Then  Rosina  appeared  with  water  and  towels,  fol- 
lowed by  the  entire  crowd  of  guests,  who,  with  their 
half-emptied  glasses  in  their  hands,  stood  around  Ed- 
wards and  his  wounded,  silently,  intensely  interested  in 
every  movement  that  he  made. 

A  Saturday  afternoon  fight,  blood,  and  all  that  were 
usual  enough.  But  a  real  doctor,  with  strange  instru- 
ments, to  patch  up  the  wounded  antagonists;  that  was 
new,  —  that  was  "fein." 

For  the  first  of  many  thousand  times,  Edwards  had 
cause  to  bless  the  foresight  of  old  Professor  Schroeder. 

The  ease  that  he  had  been  told  to  put  at  once  into 
his  pocket  was  soon  open  on  the  table  before  him.  There 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        o3 

were  needles  there,  and  sSk,  all  in  small  sealed  vials  of 
carbolic  add.  A  small  needle-holder  too.  He  laid  out 
the  instruments  under  the  admiring  gaze  of  the  onlookers, 
while  Franzl,  delighted  to  be  the  center  of  interest,  held 
a  wet  cloth  to  his  bleeding  ear. 

"If  I  only  had  the  other  piece,"  Edwards  said  aloud, 
"I  could  make  a  better  job." 

Kassian's  deep  booming  voice  broke  in — 

"Here  it  be.    I  found  it  in  my  beard." 

Then  turning  to  the  crowd  of  silent  spectators,  he 
added— 

"Didn't  I  tell  yon?  Just  you  watch.  A  fine  Herr 
Doktor.  And  if  he  can  make  a  new  ear,  can't  he  make 
the  mother  well?" 

Edwards  did  what  he  could.  Indeed,  he  was  rather 
pleased  with  the  result.  He  arranged  a  temporary  band- 
age that  swathed  FranzTs  head  in  white,  and  then  he 
dressed  Kassian's  smaller  wounds.  Some  of  them  needed 
three  stitches.  It  seemed  as  if  they  must  be  infected,  so 
filthy  were  their  immediate  surroundings.  During  the 
whole  process  the  two  combatants  sat  peacefully  side 
by  side.  There  seemed  to  be  no  ill-feeling  between 
them. 

"You  see,"  explained  Franzl,  "Kassian  had  an  anger 
on  me  since  yesterday,  because  Nani  poured  the  cold 
water  down  his  neck.  And  when  I  came  in  for  a  drink 
this  afternoon  he  crossed  over  to  my  table  and  sat  down 
there.  Then  Bosine  served  us.  And  she — she  leaned 
more  against  my  shoulder  when  she  put  the  glasses  on  the 
table  than  she  did  against  lii«-  Kalian  thought  so  any- 
way." 

"Ach,  was!  Such  a  baggage,"  interposed  1C»anxn 
cheerfully.  "  Twas  only  to  make  us  stay  and  order 
more  drinks.  But  you  oughtn't  to  have  called  her  names. 
She's  my  third  cousin." 

"I'd  forgotten  that.    But  you  called  me  'Lausbub.'  " 

"I  was  very  drunk.  I  am  still.  And  it  was  Satur- 
day afternoon.  So  now  you  see,  Herr  Doktor,  how  it 
all  happened." 

"Hallo,  hallo,  what's  all  this?"  the  voice  of  the 


64        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Biirgermeister  broke  in  good-humoredly.  Undisturbed 
by  the  whole  affair,  he  had  slumbered  until  now,  exactly 
his  accustomed  half-hour,  in  the  warm  sun.  He  smiled 
as  he  recognized  his  youngest,  his  favorite  son. 

"So-o-o,  Franzl,  not  eighteen  yet,  and  already  such 
a  fighting-cat!  Well,  well,  I  was  the  same  at  thy  age. 
What  ?  The  Herr  Doktor  has  made  thee  a  new  ear  ? ' ' 

He  turned  delightedly  to  Edwards. 

"Ich  danke  sehr,  Herr  Doktor.  That  will  please  the 
wife  too.  Come,  Franzl.  Griiss  Gott,  Griiss  Gott." 

"And  now,  Herr  Doktor,"  said  Kassian,  as  the  Biirger- 
meister disappeared  with  his  son  and  the  group  of  on- 
lookers at  the  inn-door  broke  up,  "now  you  must  come 
and  see  the  mother.  She  has  great  pain.  For  three  days 
now  she  cannot  sleep.  And  she  cries  to  the  Mother  of 
God,  praying  that  she  may  die.  She's  so  discouraged. 
And  of  course,  she  can 't  do  a  stroke  of  work. ' ' 

Edwards  jumped  up. 

"Come  along,"  he  said.  "You'll  go  with  us,  won't 
you,  Hochwiirden?  Kassian  can  tell  us  more  on  the 
way." 

As  they  walked  together  down  the  village  street,  Ed- 
wards' pace  gradually  quickened.  For  what  Kassian 
told  him  was  so  infinitely  more  horrible  than  a  lost  ear 
that  his  nerves  tingled  at  the  thought  of  this  old  woman 's 
suffering. 

The  physicians  in  the  Clinic  had  pronounced  her 
cancer  too  far  advanced  for  an  operation ;  they  had  given 
her  eight  to  ten  weeks  more  of  life,  and  would  have 
kept  her  in  the  hospital,  under  morphia,  had  Kassian 
not  suddenly  appeared  with  the  announcement  that  he 
wished  to  take  his  mother  home,  as  there  was  now  to  be 
a  doctor  within  call.  The  clinical  assistants  are  busy 
men;  they  have  no  time  to  investigate  the  private  sur- 
roundings of  such  hopelessly  lost  cases.  Nor  can  they 
refuse  the  request  of  a  son,  that  his  mother  may  die  at 
home.  Besides,  the  Clinic  was  full ;  every  extra  bed  was 
needed.  Therefore  they  had  given  Kassian,  in  the  form 
of  powders,  enough  morphia  to  last  for  three  days,  at 
the  end  of  which  he  was  to  call  in  the  local  practitioner, 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        65 

who  could  either  renew  the  powders  or  give  the  morphia 
hypodermically. 

Three  days ! 

And  the  woman  had  been  away  from  the  Clinic  for  a 
whole  week! 

At  the  end  of  these  three  days  there  had  been  no 
more  powders.  And  added  to  the  torment  of  her  cancer, 
she  must  have  endured  the  exquisite  nervous  suffering 
that  follows  the  sudden  withdrawal  of  all  preparations 
of  opium.  In  this  hell  she  had  been  lying  four  whole 
days.  Good  God,  he  must  hurry. 

He  opened  his  pocket-case  as  he  went.  Thank  heaven 
there  was  a  hypodermic  syringe  there.  "Morphium 
hydrochloricum, ' '  too. 

"But  why  didn't  you  come  and  get  me  yesterday, 
Kassian — the  moment  that  I  got  here?  I'd  have  come 
at  once." 

Kassian  sheepishly  scratched  his  mighty  beard. 

' '  I  did  mean  to, ' '  he  stammered.  ' '  That 's  why  I  came 
out  to  meet  you  on  the  road.  Ever  since  she's  had  the 
bad  pain  I've  been  there  to  watch.  But  yesterday 
there  warn't  much  to  eat  at  home, — the  mother  so  sick 
and  all; — and  I  took  schnaps  from  the  Drachen-Wirt 
with  me.  And  I  fell  asleep  there.  You  know. — And 
when  you  came  I  was  so  glad  that  I — that  I  clean  forgot 
the  mother  wanting  you.  And  then, — then  I  meant  to  go 
back  to  the  schoolhouse  and  get  you,  but  I  sat  down  to 
rest  somewhere  and  fell  asleep  again. — And  this  morning 
I  didn't  go  home, — 'tis  bad  at  home  these  days.  Not 
neat  like  it  used  to  be.  And  the  mother  so  sick  and  all. 
So  I  went  to  the  Drachen-Wirt  for  a  bit  of  breakfast 
before  coming  for  you. — I  took  one  'Puddel'  of  schnaps, 
— and  then  another. — And  then  Franzl  came.  And 
then that's  all." 

"Hurry,"  said  Edwards,  as  the  fat  little  priest  puffed 
along  by  his  side.  "What  inhuman  fiendish  cruelty!" 

' '  But,  Kassian, ' '  panted  the  priest,  ' '  you  do  love  your 
mother,  don 't  you  ?  Tell  the  Herr  Doktor. ' ' 

To  Edwards'  consternation  Kassian  stopped  short,  took 
off  his  hat,  and  gazed  skywards. 


66        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"Do  I  love  the  mother!"  he  shouted.  "Why,  she's 
the  best,  the  finest,  kindest  mother  that  a  man  ever  had. 
I'd  never  have  found  a  wife  who'd  have  got  through 
one-half  the  work  she's  done  in  all  these  years.  And  no 
children  to  bother  about  and  pay  for.  Love  the  mother ! 
I'd  carry  her  on  my  hands,  that  I  would.  It's  true  she 
hasn't  been  able  to  do  much  since  the  sickness  came. 
But  that'll  be  all  right  now.  The  Herr  Doktor  says  he 
can  make  her  well." 

The  priest  patted  him  on  the  shoulder. 

"You  run  along  ahead,"  he  said,  giving  Kassian  a 
push,  "and  tell  your  mother  that  the  doctor  is  coming. 
Off  with  you." 

Then,  as  soon  as  Kassian  was  out  of  earshot,  he 
turned  to  Edwards. 

' '  Can  you  really  do  anything  for  her  ?  Kassian  firmly 
believes  that  you  can.  Why,  I  don't  know.  He  wants 
her  well, — to  work  for  him.  And  yet  he  loves  her." 

Edwards  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

* '  Cure  her !  Of  course  I  can 't.  When  I  saw  Kassian 
with  her  in  Innsbruck  I  thought  that  he  was  leaving  her 
in  the  Clinic  to  die,  that  he  would  never  see  her  again; 
and  I  wanted  him  to  part  from  her  in  a  cheerful  frame 
of  mind,  and  not  give  her  the  idea  that  she  was  saying 
farewell  to  her  precious  son  forever.  That's  why  I  told 
him  to  tell  her  she  would  soon  be  her  old  self  again.  I 
never  thought  he'd  believe  it  himself. — Well,  I'll  set 
things  right  now.  And  at  least  I  can  keep  her  out  of 
great  pain.  Let's  hurry." 

"Don't  undeceive  him,"  panted  the  priest,  as  he  jogged 
along  at  Edwards'  heels.  "Kassian  has  told  the  whole 
village  you  are  going  to  cure  his  mother.  Better  pre- 
tend to  do  so.  If  she  dies  in  a  month's  time,  you  can 
make  some  unforeseen  complication  responsible." 

"I've  no  objection  to  lying.  Doctors  have  to  lie  a 

lot.  Just  the  same,  I  don't  like  it,  and  if Is  this 

the  house?" 

It  was  a  neat  little  cottage,  surrounded  by  a  desolate 
neglected  bit  of  land.  But  its  white  paint  had  lost  its 
freshness;  even  the  curtains  at  the  window,  the  brass 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        67 

latch  of  the  door,  showed  traces  of  neglect.  Everywhere 
one  could  see  the  failing  of  a  hand  that  had  once  kept 
order  even  in  the  smallest  things. 

Inside  matters  were  still  worse. 

The  front  room  was  the  living-room,  heavily  timbered, 
with  bunches  of  seedlings  hanging  from  the  low  beams 
of  the  ceiling.  Most  of  the  floor-space  was  taken  up  by 
the  great  stove,  that  was  built  out  into  the  room.  Near 
it,  where  the  table  generally  stood,  a  shaky  wooden  bed 
had  been  set  up.  The  bedclothes  were  dirty,  tossed 
about,  dragging  on  the  unswept  floor.  But  the  bed  it- 
self was  empty.  Kassian  stood  before  it,  scratching  his 
beard. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  muttered.  "The  mother  must 
have  gone  out." 

But  the  priest,  who  had  opened  a  door  leading  into 
the  kitchen,  called  sharply  over  his  shoulder — 

' '  Here,  Herr  Doktor,  come  in  here. ' ' 

The  kitchen  was  filthy;  that  is,  everything  that  had 
been  lately  used  was  unclean.  There  were  still  on  the 
shelves  a  few  pots  and  pans  that  shone  brightly;  one 
corner  of  the  room  was  still  in  painfully  precise  order. 
But  elsewhere  were  unwashed  plates,  scraps  of  forgotten 
meals,  greasy  rags  and  piles  of  dust.  On  the  floor,  near 
a  chair  which  she  had  overturned  in  falling,  lay  the  mis- 
tress of  the  house.  So  ashen  blue  were  her  lips,  so  fright- 
fully skull-like  her  fleshless  hanging  jaw,  that  Edwards 
thought — and  hoped — the  end  was  come.  But  her  eyes 
still  lived.  They  held  Edwards  fast. 

He  lifted  the  old  woman.  The  sense  of  her  fleshless 
body  in  his  arms,  so  light,  so  disjointed  like  a  broken 
doll,  roused  the  anger  that  always  came  upon  him  with 
a  rush  at  the  sight  of  suffering  needlessly  inflicted  and 
patiently  borne.  As  he  lifted  her,  the  handle  of  a  broom 
dropped  from  her  bony  fingers. 

In  five  minutes  he  had  altered  the  whole  aspect  of  the 
living-room. 

There  was  fresh  linen  on  the  bed:  Kassian  had  been 
set  to  sweep  out  the  floor;  and  his  mother,  in  a  clean 
night-gown  and  a  heavy  shawl,  was  sitting  propped  up 


68        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

by  two  large  pillows.  Edwards  was  feeding  her  a  mix- 
ture of  warm  milk  and  a  good  measure  from  Kassiaii's 
schnaps  bottle.  And  now  he  had  bared  her  arm  and  was 
searching  for  some  spot  where  there  was  still  enough 
flesh  to  carry  a  hypodermic  injection.  As  he  poised  the 
needle  in  his  fingers  he  said — 

' 'I  am  so  sorry,  mother.  I  might  have  come  last  night. 
It  was  Kassian's  fault.  The  whole  thing's  his  fault; 
your  sickness  and  pain  during  these  last  days. ' ' 

A  look  in  her  eyes  gave  him  pause. 

1  'Oh,  I  suppose  you'll  say  he's  not  such  a  bad  lot. 
"Well,  if  you  like.  Mothers  are  made  to  forgive,  I  know. 
But  anyway  the  worst  is  over.  I'm  here.  Always 
within  call.  Remember  that.  And  now  I'm  going  to 
stop  the  pain.  It  will  take  time;  fifteen  minutes  per- 
haps. I  don't  know  how  strong  the  pain  is.  But  what 
I  am  going  to  put  into  your  blood  is  stronger.  You'll 
feel  it  go  slowly  through  your  body,  seeking  out  the  pain, 
pushing  into  the  dark  corners  where  the  pain  has  been 
sitting  all  these  long  days  and  nights.  And  you'll 
feel " 

He  thrust  in  the  needle,  injected  slowly,  rubbed  the 
prick  with  a  bit  of  cotton  soaked  in  alcohol,  and  covered 
it  with  a  tiny  square  of  plaster. 

"you'll  feel  the  pain  dissolve.  Just  the  way  a 

lump  of  sugar  dissolves  in  a  good  cup  of  hot  coffee. 
And  in  place  of  the  pain  there'll  come  long  waves  of 
quietness  and  rest,  moving  all  through  your  body.  And 
then — you'll  go  to  sleep." 

Her  lips  moved.     Edwards  bent  down  closer. 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  "you'll  wake  up  again.  But 
when  you  wake  and  the  pain  comes  once  more,  1 11  be  here 
to  take  it  away.  "What  ?  Yes,  mother,  some  day,  like  all 
of  us,  you  won't  wake  up.  No,  I  can't  tell  exactly  when. 
But  almost.  And  I  '11  let  you  know.  I  promise. ' ' 

The  appealing,  burning  eyes  were  beginning  to  lose 
their  tortured  gleam.  She  motioned  towards  the  glass; 
Kassian  moistened  her  lips.  She  held  him  tightly  by  the 
arm. 

"A  good  son,  Herr  Doktor.     None  better.     Don't  cry, 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        69 

Kassian.  The  pain  is  going. — Herr  Doktor,  I — I  tried  to 
tidy  up  a  bit  in  the  kitchen — but  I — I  couldn't." 

The  thin  lips  smiled,  and  she  sank  back  among  the 
pillows  with  a  contented  sigh. 

At  the  front  door,  to  which  Kassian  accompanied  him, 
Edwards  gave  final  and  minute  directions.  But  Kas- 
sian 's  face  wyas  clouded. . 

"Mein  Gott,  I  didn't  think  'twas  going  to  be  like 
this.  She  must  sleep,  you  say.  For  a  whole  day ;  more 
perhaps.  And  when  she  wakes,  I  give  her  something  to 
drink  or  eat.  Then  you  come  and  put  her  to  sleep  again. 
But  she  won't  be  able  to  cook  or  anything.  And  a  man 
can 't  get  along  alone.  How  long  will  she  be  like  this  ? ' ' 

The  priest  gave  him  a  warning  look,  but  Edwards 
was  in  no  mood  to  be  tactful.  The  thought  of  the  old 
mother's  martyrdom  had  stirred  him  to  anger  against 
this  degenerate  son.  He  shook  Kassian  roughly  by  the 
arm. 

' '  How  long  ?  A  few  days,  I  hope.  I  'm  afraid,  several 
weeks. — And  after  that  she'll  be  dead.  Understand? — 
I  can't  do  anything  except  keep  her  out  of  pain.  No- 
body can.  And  if  you've  got  any  decent  feelings  left  in 
you  that  alcohol  hasn't  rotted  away  yet,  you'll  look  to 
it  that  she  dies  in  comfort  and  content." 

"But  wait,  Herr  Doktor,"  stuttered  Kassian,  his  small 
narrow  eyes  beginning  to  glow  with  anger ;  ' '  then  it  was 
a  swindle  what  you  said  to  me  about  her  getting  well.  I 
don't  believe  it.  You  don't  want  to  make  her  well.  I 
know  why,  too.  It's  that  trollop,  Nani  Speckbacher, 
that 's  poisoned  your  mind  against  me.  She  and  Franzl. 
A  rotten  lot  they  are." 

' '  Hush,  Kassian, ' '  interposed  the  priest  authoritatively. 
"You  have  no  right  to  speak  like  that  to  the  Herr 
Doktor.  You  misunderstood  what  he  once  said  about 
your  mother.  Not  all  the  doctors  in  Tyrol  can  cure  her. 
So  help  her  to  a  good  death.  Show  yourself  the  loving 
son  that  she  believes  you  to  be. ' ' 

"But  what's  the  use  of  all  this  doctoring?"  persisted 
Kassian,  somewhat  cowed  by  the  priest's  authority,  yet 
with  anger  still  smoldering  in  his  watery  eyes.  "She 


70        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

sleeps  and  eats,  and  eats  and  sleeps.  And  that  goes  on 
for  weeks — till  she  dies.  How  am  I  going  to  live,  I  'd  like 
to  know?  "Who'll  cook  for  me  and  the  two  hired  men, 
milk  the  cows,  and  all  that?  The  fields  have  got  to  be 
plowed  now. — And  I  thought  the  Herr  Doktor  was  going 
to  make  her  well,  so  that  she  could  be  up  and  about  in  a 
few  days.  If  he  can  make  that  damned  Franzl  a  new 
ear,  what's  been  bitten  off,  he  can  surely  make  mother's 
insides  right  when  everything's  all  there." 

"I  tell  you  your  mother's  got  to  die,"  interrupted 
Edwards.  "  Ask  anyone.  The  doctor  in  Kuf stein. " 

Then  suddenly  he  recollected  that,  for  his  own  sake, 
a  consultation  with  an  outside  practitioner  was  the  one 
thing  that  must,  at  all  costs,  be  avoided.  He  added, 
more  quietly — 

"But  that'll  only  cost  you  money.  I'm  doing  all  that 
can  be  done. — Good  God,  man,  doesn't  it  make  any  dif- 
ference to  you  that  your  mother  is  kept  out  of  torment 
and  can  die  in  peace  ? ' ' 

"What  difference  does  it  make  if  she's  got  to  die, 
anyhow  ?  And,  Herr  Doktor,  see  here ;  I  can 't  go  paying 
for  a  lot  of  medicine  to  make  her  sleep  if  neither  she  nor 
I  are  going  to  get  any  good  out  of  it. ' ' 

The  anger  that  flared  up  in  Edwards  was  danger- 
ously near  to  a  brutal  outbreak.  But  he  mastered  it. 
On  the  first  day  of  his  practice  he  must  not  make  an 
enemy  of  his  former  friend.  His  voice  dropped  to  the 
even  tone  that  one  uses  with  sick  children  or  the  insane. 

"The  medicines  you  shall  have  for  nothing,  Kassian. 
And  I'll  come  again  to-morrow  morning.  If  she  needs 
me  before  that,  send  for  me." 

This  change  of  tone  was  a  mistake.  To  Kassian  the 
doctor,  whose  anger  had  somewhat  impressed  him,  had 
now  begun  to  "talk  small."  Evidently  he  had  got  the 
better  of  him  somehow. 

"Of  course  111  send,"  he  retorted  insolently.  "I 
pay  my  taxes.  And  part  of  my  taxes  pay  the  Herr 
Doktor 's  salary,  don't  it?" 

Then,  seeking  for  some  cause  for  dissatisfaction,  his 
eyes  lighted  on  Edwards'  shabby  clothes. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        71 

"I  pay  my  taxes,"  he  repeated.  "I  am  no  beggar. 
When  the  Herr  Doktor  comes  to  see  my  mother,  he  need 
not  look  as  if  he  were  coming  to  the  hovel  of  some  penni- 
less tramp." 

"With  a  gesture  of  triumph,  as  of  one  who  has  had  the 
last  word,  he  slammed  the  door  in  Edwards'  face. 

Edwards  had  gone  white  with  rage.  But  he  caught 
sight  of  the  priest 's  round  face,  that  was  twitching  with 
suppressed  amusement,  and  he  too  broke  into  a  hearty 
laugh. 

"Yes,  yes,  my  friend,"  said  the  priest;  "you'll  have 
to  wear  other  clothes,  when  you  pay  sick  calls.  And 
take  my  advice:  let  your  'Haus-Frau'  choose  from  your 
wardrobe  what  appears  to  her  a  suitable  uniform." 

The  front  door  that  had  been  closed  in  their  faces, 
opened  on  a  crack,  and  a  long  hairy  arm  was  extended 
towards  Edwards,  while  one  watery  blue  eye  leered  at 
him  through  the  opening. 

' '  Nichts  f iir  unguat, ' ' x  said  Kassian  's  voice.  ' '  You 
won't  bear  me  no  malice,  Herr  Doktor,  will  you?  The 
Herr  Pfarrer  knows  my  tongue's  hung  in  the  middle. 
GriissGott." 

"You  see,"  laughed  the  priest,  as  he  walked  with 
Edwards  back  to  the  schoolhouse,  "the  Christian  teach- 
ing of  not  letting  the  sun  go  down  upon  your  wrath  has 
sunk  into  them.  But  it's  only  a  surface  depth.  Some 
of  the  worst  would  knife  you  on  your  way  home  at  night : 
and,  before  you  died,  would  offer  you  a  blood-stained 
hand  and  say,  'Nichts  fur  unguat!'  Because, — well,  be- 
cause they  'd  be  afraid  to  go  to  bed  otherwise ;  not  afraid, 
mind  you,  of  having  taken  your  life,  but  afraid  of  sleep- 
ing with  hatred  of  their  neighbor  in  their  hearts.  And 
not  a  bad  idea  either.  What  we  do  with  our  bodies, — 
thieving,  knifing,  wenching, — we  don't  bother  much 
about.  But  we  set  great  value  on  what  we  do  with  the 
thing  we  call  our  souls. — You  '11  understand  us  better  by- 
and-by. — Auf  Wiedersehen. — High  Mass  to-morrow  at 
eight-thirty. — Nani  '11  see  that  you  don 't  forget. ' ' 

i  "Nichts  fur  unguat" — meaning,  "Don't  lay  it  up  against  me;  I 
didn't  mean  you  any  harm." 


72        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

The  sun  had  set  when  Edwards  opened  the  door  of  his 
new  rooms.  He  lit  the  single  lamp,  that  gave  a  most 
precarious  light.  It  was  quite  evident  why  the  people 
of  Thiersee  went  early  to  bed.  On  the  table,  in  his  liv- 
ing-room, was  set  out  a  meal  of  cold  meat,  bread  and 
cheese.  Not  very  appetizing;  and  very  lonely.  Ed- 
wards determined  to  ask  the  schoolmaster,  when  he  re- 
turned, to  share  his  supper.  But  in  spite  of  his  loneli- 
ness, the  traditions  of  his  race  were  still  strong  upon  him, 
and  he  went  into  his  bedroom  to  make  some  sort  of  ritual 
preparation  for  the  evening  meal.  As  he  lifted  high  the 
lamp,  he  saw  clothes  laid  out  on  his  bed, — laid  out  with 
infinite  care.  But  when  he  saw  what  they  were,  he  put 
down  the  light  for  fear  of  letting  it  fall. 

The  trousers  might  pass,  though  he  had  never  liked 
them  because  of  their  loud  stripe.  But  the  other  Gar- 
ment of  Praise ! 

It  was  a  very  dilapidated  old  frock-coat,  made  in  the 
days  of  his  good  fortunes  long  ago  by  a  London  tailor, 
and  kept,  not  for  use,  but  because  he  could  not  bear  to 
give  it  away.  He  had  not  brought  it  with  him  to  wear, 
but  stuffed  in  as  a  buffer  between  his  microscope  and  his 
shoes  at  the  bottom  of  his  trunk,  intending  some  day  to 
cut  out  the  silk  lining  and  use  bits  of  it  for  polishing 
his  instruments.  And  here  it  was,  pressed  out,  with  the 
worst  holes  in  the  lining  darned,  ready  to  put  on.  It 
was  too  preposterous. 

And  on  top  of  it  lay  his  old  round  stiff  hat,  an 
ancient  Derby  that  he  had  been  ashamed  to  wear  in 
Innsbruck  these  last  two  years,  and  that  had  been  packed 
among  his  other  belongings  merely  because  it  was  a  good 
safe  place  for  his  clean  collars.  It  was  shabby  beyond 
words.  But  the  white  spots  on  the  rim  around  the  brim 
did  not  show  so  much  as  they  used  to  do.  He  touched 
one  of  them  with  his  finger. 

Ink! 

They  had  covered  the  white  spots  and  holes  with  ink. 

"Bless  their  souls,"  he  said  to  himself.  "But  if  they 
think  I'm  going  about  dressed  like  a  scarecrow,  they're 
mistaken." 


CHAPTER  VII 

HE  took  the  lamp  into  the  outer  room,  sat  down  at  the 
supper-table,  and  began  to  eat.  But  the  dry  bread  and 
cheese  stuck  in  his  throat.  While  he  made  pretense 
to  consume  it,  he  began  to  unload  his  heavy  pockets. 
The  emergency  case,  that  had  stood  him  to-day  in  such 
good  stead,  he  opened  and  rearranged.  In  an  inner 
compartment,  where  the  court  plaster  was,  he  found  an- 
other of  Professor  Schroeder's  visiting-cards. 

"I  must  write  and  thank  him  at  once,"  he  said  to 
himself.  Then,  puzzled,  he  turned  the  card  to  the  light. 
It  bore  only  three  words — 

"GYGES  HIS  RING." 

Edwards  was  too  tired  to  go  through  his  brain-paths, 
hunting  for  some  association  that  would  connect  Gyges 
with  Professor  Schroeder.  He  put  the  case  aside  and 
took  up  the  thin  leather  wallet  that  he  carried  with  him 
always.  Once,  years  ago,  it  had  represented  all  that  he 
had  saved  from  the  wreck.  Addresses,  cards,  letters,  a 
few  dried  flowers;  all  links,  in  his  mind,  with  the  few 
people  that  he  cared  to  remember, — or  that  cared  to  re- 
member him. 

Little  by  little,  in  these  last  five  years,  the  wallet 
had  grown  thinner.  One  after  another,  the  things  that 
it  contained  had  come  to  lose  their  meaning,  and  so  he 
had  destroyed  them.  Some  people  had  never  written  at 
all.  Others  had  written,  and  he  had  answered, — once. 
Apparently,  the  things  they  expected  him  to  say,  he  had 
not  said,  or  would  not  say.  And  they  had  not  tempted 
him  with  letters  again.  Others  were  dead.  Still  others 
wished  he  were  dead,  perhaps.  In  either  case,  of  the 
dead  he  kept  no  memorials.  The  things  he  did  keep  were 

73 


74        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

alive, — were  assurances  of  a  meeting  in  the  body, — some- 
time in  the  future, — at  home. 

And  now  the  wallet  contained  merely  Edwards'  legiti- 
mation papers  for  Austria,  his  old  American  passport, 
and,  under  a  separate  leathern  flap,  a  photograph  and  a 
thin  packet  of  letters. 

He  took  them  out  now  as  he  sat  alone  amidst  these 
strange  surroundings,  thousands  of  miles  away  from  all 
the  familiar  things  that  had  made  his  youth  and  early 
manhood.  The  photograph  he  set  up  beneath  the  lamp. 
It  was  the  picture  of  a  delicate-looking  child,  six  or 
perhaps  seven  years  old.  And,  as  he  had  done  hundreds 
of  times  before,  he  examined  the  childish  face  for  some 
trace  of  a  familiar  look,  some  echo  of  a  happy  memory. 
He  could  not  find  it.  Then  he  opened  the  packet  of 
letters  carefully,  almost  reverently,  and  read  the  first 
one  through. 

"DEAR  DR.  EDWARDS, — John  died  three  days  ago. 
We  have  just  come  back  from  the  cemetery.  And  I 
find  here  a  letter  from  you,  addressed  to  my  dead 
husband.  Something  forbade  me  to  burn  it.  You  will 
forgive  me,  I  know,  for  having  read  what  you  intended 
for  his  eyes  alone.  And  I  want  to  thank  you.  For 
somehow  your  letter,  although  not  written  to  me,  has 
given  me  much  comfort.  I  see  that  my  love  for  my 
husband  was  not  merely  the  ideal  of  a  devoted  wife. 
I  see  that  he  was,  indeed,  all  that  I  believed  him  to  be. 
Yes,  even  more. 

"Men,  I  take  it,  do  not  often  write  to  other  men  as 
you  wrote  to  John.  Do  you  remember,  you  quoted 
some  sentences  from  the  last  letter  he  ever  sent  you. 
He  had  written — (forgive  me  if  I  touch  a  painful  scar)  : 
'Last  week  I  was  at  the  old  school  for  Anniversary 
Day.  You  will  guess  what  I  heard  there  about  you. 
It  seemed  to  me  as  if  it  gave  certain  malicious  little- 
minded  people  pleasure  to  tell  me  these  things.  For 
they  all  knew  of  our  friendship.  I  boasted  of  it  often 
enough  in  the  old  days.  And,  Charlie,  I  boast  of  it, — 
I'm  proud  of  it  still.  The  things  I  heard  hurt  me.  But 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        75 

I  soon  put  them  aside.  Whether  they  be  true  or  false, 
I  don't  know — or  care.  It's  you  I  care  for,  my  friend. 
Not  for  the  things  you  did  or  may  do  ever.  I  want  you 
to  hold  fast  to  that. ' 

' '  This  was  what  you  quoted.  It  was  as  if  I  had  heard 
John  speaking. 

"And  what  you  wrote  to  him  in  answer,  of  how  you 
had  found  a  new  hold  on  life  through  his  affection  for 
you,  and  all  that  you  said  about  your  friendship  at 
school  and  afterwards, — that  gave  me  an  even  deeper 
insight  into  John's  character  than  I  had  ever  had  be- 
fore. I  had  known  the  husband,  the  loving  son.  Now 
I  knew  the  loyal  friend. 

"Your  name  was  often  spoken  between  us  during  the 
last  few  wreeks  of  his  illness.  He  used  to  talk  with 
especial  delight  of  his  school-days.  And  naturally,  of 
these  you  were  a  great  part.  And  though  he  sent  you 
no  message — no  special  message  (the  end  came  too 
quickly  for  that) , — yet  I  know  he  would  have  wished  that 
I  should  write,  that  I  should,  in  some  small  way,  keep 
in  existence  the  tie  that  bound  you.  I  think  you  al- 
ways wrote  to  one  another  once  a-year  at  Easter-time. 
You  were  both  quite  useless  as  frequent  correspondents. 
Let  us  not  give  it  up,  this  yearly  greeting  across  the 
seas. 

"It  is  perhaps  fitting  that  this,  my  first  Easter  letter 
to  you, 'should  fall  in  a  time  when  the  spring  seems  to 
have  gone  out  of  my  life  forever. 

"I  enclose  you  a  picture  of  'Little  John.'  He  has 
his  father's  smile." 

Edwards  folded  up  this  first  letter,  laid  it  aside,  and 
took  up  the  photograph  once  more.  No;  he  could  see 
no  likeness. 

Then  he  returned  to  the  letters.  There  were  five  of 
them  altogether;  one  for  every  year  that  he  had  spent 
abroad,  except  the  last.  All  written  in  the  same  tone 
of  assured  friendship  and  trust.  All  overcast  by  the 
shadow  of  a  great  loss;  yet,  as  it  seemed  to  Edwards, 
growing  somewhat  brighter  as  the  years  passed,  and 


76        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

the  child  grew  into  the  empty  places  in  his  mother's 
heart. 

Over  a  paragraph  in  the  last  letter,  that  had  come 
a  year  ago,  he  lingered,  reading  and  re-reading  it  again 
and  again. 

"I  think  that  we  shall  be  in  Europe  this  year  or 
next.  Little  John  is  very  delicate.  The  doctors  here 
don't  seem  to  get  at  the  root  of  his  trouble.  I  have 
an  idea  that  Italy  might  do  him  good.  Besides,  he  is 
almost  twelve  now,  and  I  want  him  to  see  something  of 
the  world  before  he  starts  at  school.  I  want  to  see  some- 
thing of  it  too.  And  you  may  be  sure  that  both  of  us 
shall  look  forward  to  seeing  you.  I  shall  write  you 
later  of  our  plans  when  they  have  taken  definite  shape. 
The  enclosed  Easter  card  Little  John  picked  out  himself 
for  you,  because  it  is  his  'favoritest  picture.'  ' 

Edwards  set  the  colored  card  beside  the  child's  photo- 
graph— Botticelli's  "Tobias  and  the  Angels." 

And,  with  the  letter  still  open  in  his  hand,  he  let  his 
thoughts  wander  down  a  secret  path,  into  a  land  that 
had  been  his  sole  Country  of  Delight  during  all  these 
last  hard  years. 

It  was  an  Impossible  Road,  leading  to  an  Impossible 
Country;  he  knew  that  well  enough.  And  each  time 
that  he  turned  his  back  on  it,  called  away  by  the  real- 
ities of  his  life,  he  laughed  at  himself  as  an  idiotic 
dreamer  of  sentimental  dreams.  Yet  the  road  to  his 
dreamland  was  never  closed.  He  had  not  the  heart  to 
close  it,  knowing  only  too  well  that  some  day  it  would 
vanish  of  its  own  accord.  So,  while  he  might,  he  wan- 
dered in  it,  together  with  a  child  which  he  had  never 
set  eyes  on,  and  with  a  woman  whom  he  had  never 
seen. 

At  last  he  folded  the  letters  and  put  them  away. 

"Were  they  in  Europe,  he  wondered.  Since  her  last 
letter,  written  a  year  ago,  he  had  heard  nothing  more. 
Perhaps  they  were  actually  on  this  side  of  the  water. 
In  Italy.  They  might  even  have  stopped  over  for  a 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        77 

day  in  Innsbruck  on  their  way  north.  But  no  doubt  she 
had  quite  forgotten  his  existence,  where  he  lived,  and 
what  he  did. 

"Why,  I  may  have  passed  her  on  the  street,"  he  said 
aloud.  "And,  of  course,  I  shouldn't  have  recognized 
her.  She  has  never  sent  me  even  the  smallest  picture 
of  herself.  I  think,  though,  that  I  should  know  her 
somehow.  Ridiculous!  Here  I  sit,  allowing  myself  to 

imagine  that  she  and  I And  I  don't  even  know 

what  she  looks  like.  Lord,  Charles  Edwards,  but  you 
are  a  fool." 

These,  however,  were  routine  reproaches  which  Ed- 
wards was  wont  to  address  to  himself  at  regular  inter- 
vals whenever  he  had  been  seeking  comfort  in  his  secret, 
impossible,  and  beloved  country. 

He  was  not  destined  to  get  to  bed  that  night  in  peace. 
For  he  had  scarcely  returned  the  thin  leather  wallet  to 
his  inner  pocket  when  Nani  appeared.  Ostensibly  she 
came  to  clear  away  his  supper  things. 

"I  wouldn't  let  the  mother  climb  the  stairs,"  she 
explained.  "Her  legs  and  feet  are  so  bad  again.  I 
know  she  won't  sleep.  And,"  she  added  reproachfully, 
"she's  been  worrying  because  the  Herr  Doktor  was 
angry  about  the  clothes.  We  spent  all  the  afternoon  get- 
ting these  fine  things  ready.  And  the  Herr  Doktor 
never  came  back  to  put  them  on  at  all." 

The  freshness  of  her  beauty,  the  ease  with  which  she 
moved,  as  well  as  the  atmosphere  of  health  that  hung 
about  her,  were  not  lost  on  Edwards.  She  had  come 
at  a  moment  when  his  life  seemed  very  empty;  he  was 
very  tired ;  and  the  assumption  of  ownership  with  which 
she  treated  him,  accepting  him  as  an  integral  part  of 
her  life,  gave  him  a  sense  of  happy  security.  He 
watched  her  lazily. 

"And  do  you  think  I  shall  look  attractive  in  these 
hideous  garments  ? "  he  asked. 

"But  they  are  very  beautiful  clothes, — still,"  she  pro- 
tested. "Whatever  the  Herr  Doktor  wears,  he  looks 
always  like  a  'feiner  Herr.'  But  in  the  good  clothes — 


78        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

ach! — there  will  be  no  one  like  him  in  all  Tyrol  at  mass 
to-morrow. ' ' 

"Danke.  Ich  kiiss'  die  Hand. — And  now  I'll  come 
down  and  see  your  mother." 

During  the  next  half-hour,  in  the  little  low  rooms  on 
the  ground-floor  of  the  schoolhouse  where  Nani  and 
her  mother  slept,  Edwards  laid  the  basis  of  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  Worker  of  Miracles.  Nani  ran  up  and  down 
stairs  bringing  him  instruments  and  bandages,  or  stand- 
ing with  her  face  close  to  his,  as  she  held  her  mother's 
foot  while  he  operated.  She  was  a  delightful  assistant. 

A  simple  operation  enough.  But  one  that  made  the 
new  doctor  famous  in  Thiersee. 

The  varicose  veins,  the  open  sores  on  Frau  Speck- 
baeher's  legs,  were  to  her  mere  details.  She  was  used 
to  the  type  of  pain  they  gave  and  had  long  given.  But 
she  was  not  used  to  the  pain  that  came  from  an  old 
ingrowing  toe-nail.  The  whole  toe  was  inflamed  as  far 
as  the  second  joint,  and  so  intensely  sensitive  to  the 
touch  that  even  the  brave  old  woman  winced  under  Ed- 
wards' careful  fingers. 

"You'll  feel  a  pin-prick  or  two,"  he  said,  filling  the 
hypodermic  syringe  with  the  "Novocain"  mixture  that 
was  to  block  all  the  nerves  of  the  toe  and  make  the 
operation  painless. 

Nani  held  her  mother's  foot  on  her  knee,  interposing 
her  body  between  her  mother  and  Edwards,  so  that 
Frau  Speckbacher  could  not  see  what  was  happening. 
In  the  boiling  water  at  his  elbow  he  had  a  pair  of 
scissors  with  long  fine  points,  a  pair  of  forceps,  and  a 
scalpel. 

''You  won't  cut  it, — you  won't,"  protested  Frau 
Speckbacher,  fixing  a  horrified  glance  on  the  handle 
of  the  shining  knife. 

"I  am  going  to  make  that  toe  well  forever,"  Edwards 
answered. 

He  had  injected  his  "Novocain,"  and  was  waiting  for 
it  to  take  effect. 

"But  you  shan't  feel  any  pain,  I  promise  you.  And 
you  must  believe  me.  That's  the  main  point." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        79 

He  himself  was  more  than  uneasy.  These  local  an- 
assthetizings  did  not  always  work.  One  missed  the  nerve 
sometimes  when  one  injected.  And  he  had  promised  not 
to  hurt  her. 

He  touched  the  tip  of  the  inflamed  toe,  now  brown 
with  the  disinfecting  iodine.  He  pressed  it  less  tenderly. 
Frau  Speckbacher  made  no  sign. 

"Don't  be  afraid,"  he  said,  moving  Nani  a  little  to 
the  left,  so  that  her  mother  could  not  even  peep  over 
her  shoulder.  "When  it's  going  to  hurt,  I'll  tell  you." 

Surreptitiously  he  got  hold  of  the  forceps  and  tried 
them  on  the  throbbing  tender  skin.  He  pinched  the 
toe  still  harder.  Frau  Speckbacher  did  not  even  wince. 
The  anaesthetic  was  working.  The  nerve  was  blocked. 

Dare  he  begin  now?  If  he  waited  too  long  the  nerve- 
block  might  not  hold  out.  It  was  now  or  never. 

Opening  the  scissors,  he  thrust  one  long  point  deep 
down  under  the  toe-nail,  flat  down  into  the  very  nail- 
bed.  Then  he  turned  it  upwards,  and  with  one  stroke 
of  the  scissors  cut  the  whole  nail  in  two.  With  his 
forceps  he  caught  first  one  half,  then  the  other,  and 
twisted  them  out  of  the  flesh.  In  less  than  five  seconds 
the  nail  had  been  removed. 

He  looked  up  into  Nani's  rolling  eyes.  She  stared 
at  him  as  children  gaze  at  some  marvelous  conjurer. 

"Don't  hold  my  leg  so  tight,  Nani,"  interposed  Frau 
Speckbacher.  ' '  And  Herr  Doktor,  why  won 't  you  begin  ? 
I  won't  make  a  fuss." 

Nani  opened  her  mouth  in  an  exclamation  of  wonder, 
but  Edwards  checked  her. 

With  the  scalpel  he  cut  away,  down  to  the  bone,  the 
flesh  that  had  once  framed  in  the  troublesome  nail,  so 
that  the  entire  nail-bed  was  destroyed.  There  should 
be  no  chance  of  recurring  inflammation  here.  Then 
with  quick,  deft  fingers  he  bandaged. 

"So  that's  done,"  he  said. 

Nani  lifted  her  mother's  bandaged  foot  carefully  to 
the  bed,  and  then  a  torrent  of  speech  broke  forth,  while 
Edwards  stood  by  cleaning  his  instruments. 

"See,  mother — so  he  went  in  with  the  scissors.    I 


80        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

thought  you  'd  yell,  mother.  And  I  'd  begun  to  be  angry 
with  him  for  hurting  you  like  that.  Eitchey-ratchey, 
down  he  went,  under  the  nail. — Then,  bums !  It  was  cut 
in  two  and  out.  Look,  here  are  the  two  halves  of  it." 

Frau  Speckbacher  listened  with  wide-eyed  wonder. 
Pain  had  always  been  to  her  such  an  inevitable  part  of 
life  that  a  man,  who  could  bid  it  go  and  be  obeyed,  was 
to  her  something  between  a  magician  and  a  god.  She 
promised  docilely  to  lie  up  for  two  days,  as  Edwards 
ordered  her  to  do;  and  when  he  bade  her  good  night, 
she  took  his  hand  between  her  hard  palms  and  kissed 
it. 

Upstairs,  while  he  was  putting  away  his  instruments 
and  making  up  a  simple  sleeping-draught  for  his  new 
patient,  Nani  fluttered  about  the  room.  The  clothes 
that  had  roused  Edwards'  wrath  she  laid  out  on  a  chair 
with  extreme  carefulness,  ready  for  the  morrow.  Then 
she  turned  down  the  bed,  smoothing  out  the  rough  sheets 
as  if  performing  some  weighty  ceremonial  rite.  Her 
chatter  about  the  wonderful  operation  had  gradually 
ceased;  her  work  in  the  room  was  finished,  yet  she 
hung  back,  unwilling  to  be  gone. 

Edwards,  utterly  tired  out,  dropped  down  on  the  side 
of  his  bed. 

"  I  am  so  sleepy,  Nani, ' '  he  said.  ' '  I  must  get  between 
the  sheets.  Good  night.'* 

He  bent  down  towards  his  shoes,  but  in  an  instant 
she  was  on  her  knees  at  his  feet,  her  fingers  busy  with 
the  knotted  laces.  He  was  too  tired  to  protest. 

Suddenly  she  looked  up. 

"You  will  wear  the  fine  clothes  to-morrow?" 

Edwards  nodded.  He  did  not  trust  himself  to  speak. 
He  put  out  one  hand  to  caress  her  hair,  but  before  his 
hand  touched  her  she  had  sprung  to  her  feet. 

"Oh,  oh!"  she  exclaimed,  as  she  picked  up  his  dusty 
boots;  "but  you  are  a  dear  man." 

She  threw  her  free  arm  round  his  neck,  bent  down 
and  rubbed  her  cheek  against  his. 

Then,  with  a  delighted  laugh,  she  was  gone. 

In  spite  of  his  utter  weariness  Edwards  could  not 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        81 

sleep.  At  last  he  fell  into  a  doze,  from  which  he  woke 
with  a  start.  Somewhere  in  the  house  a  board  had 
creaked. 

He  got  out  of  bed  and  went  to  the  window.  The 
moon  was  up,  so  bright  in  mid-heaven  that  the  snow- 
covered  peaks  were  sharply  reflected  in  the  waters  of 
the  little  lake.  All  seemed  quiet. 

Then  down  below  him.  he  heard  a  window  open. — 
Nani's  window. 

He  leaned  out  and  looked  down. 

From  the  surrounding  shadows  of  the  house  a  figure 
stepped  into  the  moonlight,  then  turned  back  and  bent 
across  the  low  sill  of  the  window  from  which  it  had 
appeared,  as  if  speaking  a  last  word  to  someone  within. 

After  a  moment's  silence,  it  moved  softly  away  across 
the  little  garden. 

There  was  something  white  wrapped  about  its  head 
and  over  one  ear.  Edwards  recognized  his  own  ban- 
dages. 

He  shivered  and  went  hastily  back  to  bed. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THREE  weeks  had  passed  since  Edwards  had  come  to 
Thiersee,  and  already  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  become 
part  of  the  place.  At  times,  however,  he  felt  further 
removed  than  ever  from  an  understanding  of  the  people 
among  whom  he  worked;  yet  he  was  by  nature  adapt- 
able, and  he  learned  much  from  daily  contact  with  his 
patients. 

On  week-days  he  was  up  at  six,  often  before  that,  for 
people  came  to  see  him  on  their  way  to  work.  It  was 
their  only  free  time.  But  this  was  his  gain ;  they  could 
not  stay  long.  By  eight  o'clock  he  was  free.  Then  he 
visited  the  six  or  seven  regular  patients  on  his  list,  ate 
his  dinner  at  the  "Drachen,"  and  had  the  afternoons  to 
himself.  Usually  he  took  a  book  and  walked  up  the 
valley.  And  usually  he  came  upon  Nani  under  the  tree 
with  her  cows,  or  joined  Franzl  when  he  went  out  at 
five  o'clock  to  meet  her  and  help  her  drive  the  cattle 
home.  The  two  young  people  welcomed  him  gladly. 

But  on  Sundays  and  feast-days  he  had  no  single  mo- 
ment to  himself.  Then  his  patients  had  time  to  talk 
about  their  ailments:  then  they  began  to  wander  into 
the  schoolhouse  while  he  was  yet  at  his  morning  coffee. 
They  went  with  him  to  church;  they  pursued  him  to 
the  inn.  And  the  visits  that  he  made  on  Sunday  after- 
noons were  the  causes  of  endless  bickerings,  for  if  he 
stayed  five  minutes  longer  in  one  house  than  in  another, 
he  was  reproached  with  partiality  and  neglect. 

This,  his  third  Sunday  in  Thiersee,  was  Palm  Sun- 
day ;  and  he  dreaded  the  coming  Holy  "Week  and  Easter 
holidays,  knowing  how  much  free  time  his  people  would 
have  on  their  hands.  But  there  were  one  or  two  bright 
spots  on  the  horizon:  the  schoolmaster  was  expected 

82 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        83 

back  after  Easter,  and  Father  Mathias  had  asked  Ed- 
wards to  take  his  evening  meal  on  Sundays  at  the 
"Widum."1 

Until  to-day  his  mind  had  been  too  full  of  new  im- 
pressions to  leave  room  for  a  consideration  of  the  pe- 
culiar elements  which  graced  or  disgraced  life  at  Thier- 
see  of  a  Sunday.  It  seemed  as  if  all  the  good,  as  well 
as  all  the  evil,  that  had  been  growing  in  silence  or  secret 
during  the  week,  were  brought  to  sudden  flowering 
bloom  on  the  Lord's  Day.  It  was,  for  Thiersee  at  least, 
not  a  day  of  rest,  but  a  day  of  intense  activity:  and 
whether  it  was  the  Lord's  or  the  devil's  was  sometimes 
hard  to  tell. 

The  young  farmer,  who  had  in  secret  been  sullenly 
jealous  of  a  companion  all  the  week,  gave  on  Sunday 
free  rein  to  his  anger,  and  got  rid  of  it  somehow  in  a 
fight  with  words  or  knives. 

The  girls,  too,  each  in  her  own  way,  sought  and  found 
on  Sunday  a  vent  for  the  thoughts  of  coquetry,  vanity, 
or  ill-will  that  had  been  kept  under  by  the  hard  work 
of  the  six  preceding  days. 

Even  the  old  toothless  women,  already  cheek-by-jowl 
with  death,  who  all  the  week  long  had  slaved  silently 
at  their  hearthstones  for  son  or  husband  or  grand- 
children, awoke  on  the  seventh  morning  to  whatever  of 
life  was  left  them.  Their  tongues  were  loosed,  and  all 
the  scandal,  all  the  evil  report  that  had  reached  their 
ears  or  had  been  willfully  invented  by  their  atrophying 
brains,  was  poured  out  upon  the  defenseless  community. 

But  not  only  the  evil  things, — the  best  things,  too, 
found  on  Sunday  expression  and  completion.  The 
happy  life  of  the  family,  so  often  disturbed  during  the 
week  by  the  conflicting  duties  of  its  members,  was  re- 
cemented  on  Sunday.  Seldom  did  one  see  a  married 
man  or  woman  taking  his  or  her  pleasure  alone.  The 
crowd  that  filled  the  back  room  of  the  "Drachen"  and 
fawned  upon  Rosine  was  composed  of  the  young  unmar- 
ried men  or  the  elder  ne'er-do-weels,  whose  wives  had 

1"Widum":  the  house,  often  with  a  garden  or  small  farm  at- 
tached, where  the  parish  priest  lives. 


84        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

either  left  them  in  disgust  or  been  worked  to  death  long 
ago. 

And  in  the  dim,  dingy,  little  church,  with  all  its 
tawdriness,  the  sense  of  another  world,  forgotten  for 
six  times  twenty-four  hours,  was  given  fresh  life  during 
an  hour  or  two  on  the  Lord's  Day.  The  fat  parish 
priest,  who  was  usually  nothing  more  than  a  good-na- 
tured piece  pf  human  flesh  to  all  but  a  few  who  heard 
his  daily  mass,  became,  before  the  Sunday  altar,  the 
mouthpiece  of  this  whole  community, — an  instrument, 
divinely  appointed  and  approved,  by  means  of  which 
these  men  and  women  spoke  and  pleaded  with  their 
God. 

So  Edwards  was  not  surprised  that  the  tragedy  of 
Kassian's  mother  should  reach  its  climax  on  a  Sunday 
too. 

That  Palm  Sunday  morning,  as  he  walked  down  to 
church,  he  had  her  in  his  thoughts.  Although  he  could 
put  his  finger  on  nothing  definite,  he  was  aware  that 
matters  were  not  as  they  had  been  in  Kassian's  house. 
During  the  first  week  the  old  mother  had  lain  in  a  half- 
comatose  condition,  but  under  the  treatment,  which  re- 
lieved her  of  constant  pain,  and  at  the  same  time  allowed 
her  a  minimum  of  nourishment,  she  seemed  to  have 
shown  a  last  flicker  of  strength.  Only  last  Sunday  Ed- 
wards had  noticed  that  her  manner  towards  him  had 
changed.  She  had  paid  no  attention  to  what  he  had 
said;  her  eyes  and  ears  had  been  intent  on  what  was 
going  on  in  the  kitchen  where  Kassian  and  the  two 
hired  men  were  having  their  dinner.  Then  the  door 
had  opened  and  in  had  come  the  Drachen-Wirt 's  Rosine, 
carrying  a  tray  with  the  mother's  warm  milk.  Her 
presence  had  surprised  Edwards;  so  had  her  entire  ap- 
pearance, for  she  had  toned  herself  down  in  ways  and 
apparel  to  the  level  of  other  Thiersee  women.  And  she 
had  most  certainly  done  wonders  for  the  dirty  house. 
The  kitchen  was  tidy  once  more,  and  as  for  Kassian, 
he  was  radiant.  He  had  come  in  from  the  kitchen  with 
Rosine,  had  sat  down  beside  his  mother  on  the  bed, 
and  had  begged  her  to  take  her  milk.  But  the  old 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        85 

woman  had  stoutly  refused.  Her  eyes  had  glared  at 
Kassian.  There  was  a  look  of  enmity  in  them  such  as 
Edwards  had  never  seen  there  before.  And  yet  Kas- 
sian was  far  tenderer  of  her  than  he  used  to  be. 

When  he  and  Rosine  had  gone  back  into  the  kitchen, 
leaving  the  glass  of  milk  by  the  old  woman's  bed,  she 
had  begged  Edwards  to  discontinue  the  hypodermic  in- 
jections, and  to  give  her  the  morphia  in  the  form  of 
powders.  The  reasons  she  gave  seemed  valid  enough. 
In  her  bloodless  flesh  two  of  the  needle-pricks  had  mat- 
urated. And  she  could  not  take  the  injections  herself 
when  the  pain  came  on,  whereas  she  could  use  the 
powders  when  she  chose.  Edwards  had  agreed.  And 
as  he  glanced  back  from  the  door,  he  had  seen  the  old 
woman's  fingers  reach  out  for  the  glass  of  milk  that 
she  had  but  a  moment  before  refused  to  take  from  her 
son's  hand. 

All  this  had  happened  a  week  ago.  During  the  last 
six  days  he  had  been  conscious  of  still  more  disturb- 
ing elements  in  the  situation.  That  she  was  hiding 
something  from  him  he  felt  sure.  Once  he  had  sur- 
prised her  out  of  bed,  peering  through  a  crack  in  the 
kitchen  door.  At  another  time  he  had  come  upon  her  on 
her  knees  before  the  great  crucifix  in  the  "Herrgotts- 
"Winkel"  x  of  the  living-room.  On  both  occasions  she  had 
walked  back  to  her  bed  of  her  own  accord. 

It  was  utterly  unmistakable;  some  new  source  of 
strength  had  been  opened  to  her.  Some  new  force  was 
at  work. 

Could  it  be — could  it  be — that  she  was  going  to  get 
well  after  all?  His  knowledge  told  him  that  this  was 
impossible.  But  he  could  not  put  the  idea  out  of  his 
mind.  Even  if  it  were  only  a  freak  of  chance,  .this 
cure, — what  a  feather  it  would  be  in  his  cap!  He 
must  begin  that  very  day  and  write  out  a  full  history 
of  the  case. 

At  this  moment  he  happened  to  be  passing  the  inn. 

i  "Herrgotts-Winkel" :  "The  Lord's  Corner,"  that  is,  the  corner 
in  the  living-room  of  every  peasant's  house,  where  the  crucifix  and 
sacred  pictures  hang. 


86        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Evidently  Rosine  had  something  to  do  with  the  change 
in  Kassian's  mother.  And  the  abrupt  change  in  Rosine 
herself  was  as  wonderful  as  anything  else  about  the 
whole  wonderful  business.  No  doubt  she  could  help 
him.  In  spite  of  her  appearance,  she  might  be  one  of 
those  Nurses-by-the-Grace-of-God,  under  whose  care  the 
most  hopeless  cases  are  charmed  back  to  health.  She 
would  be  going  to  mass.  "Why  shouldn't  he  stop  and 
walk  down  with  her? 

To  his  surprise  he  found  her  sitting  in  the  sun,  in 
front  of  the  inn,  her  prayer-book  in  her  mittened  hands, 
apparently  waiting.  It  was  also  evident  that  she  was 
not  waiting  for  him;  but  she  nodded  so  amiably  (and 
hitherto  he  had  often  felt  in  her  a  hostile  force)  that 
he  stopped  a  moment,  leaned  over  the  fence,  and  looked 
at  her.  Usually  of  a  Sunday,  Rosine  adorned  herself 
with  every  modish  garment  in  her  possession.  Her  huge 
hat  was  a  scandal  to  the  entire  community.  But  to-day 
her  hair,  that  was  formerly  fluffed  and  curled,  lay  in 
quiet,  shiny,  even  masses,  rolled  in  a  simple  coil  at  the 
back  of  her  head,  and  surmounted  by  the  supremely 
ugly  little  round  black  straw  hat  with  its  streamers  of 
long  black  ribbon,  that  every  unmarried  and  virtuous 
young  woman  in  Thiersee  wears,  until  she  puts  it  off 
forever,  when  she  puts  on  her  wedding-veil.  The  rest 
of  her  dress  matched  the  hat — a  plain  brown  cloth  gown, 
broidered  with  dark-blue  braid.  And,  to  Edwards'  ex- 
treme amazement,  her  tightly-laced  figure  was  no  more. 

So  amazed  was  he,  that,  forgetting  all  diplomacy,  he 
went  straight  to  the  heart  of  the  matter  that  perplexed 
him. 

"Rosine,  tell  me,  what's  up  between  Kassian  and 
you?" 

And  Rosine  answered  as  directly  as  she  was  asked. 

"We're  going  to  get  married.  He  needs  a  woman 
in  that  house.  It's  all  going  to  rack  and  ruin.  And 
I  remember  how  neat  it  was  while  his  mother  kept 
it  up.  The  best  house  in  the  village.  And  look  at  it 
now.  I  hadn't  any  idea  how  bad  it  was  till  I  went 
in,  by  chance,  a  couple  of  weeks  ago.  It  made  me  sick 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        87 

to  see  all  those  good  things  getting  spoiled  and  dirty, 
so  I  began  just  by  coming  in  for  an  hour,  here  and  there, 
and  helping  to  clean  up.  And  then  Kassian  got  sort  of 
used  to  seeing  me  round.  Since  he 's  had  his  good  meals 
at  home,  he  don't  drink  half  what  he  used  to.  You 
know,  Herr  Doktor,  a  brandy-drinker  like  Kassian  never 
eats  much,  but  what  he  eats  has  to  be  good." 

"But  if  he  stops  swilling,  won't  that  be  a  hard  blow 
to  your  father 's  regular  income  ? ' ' 

' '  Men  like  Kassian  don 't  ever  stop.  But  they  needn  't 
drink  so  much  that  they  can't  work  or  keep  their  homes 
in  order.  Besides,  I'm  tired  of  the  inn,  dead  tired  of 
waiting  on  a  lot  of  drunken  riff-raff, — letting  every  fel- 
low pinch  and  pat  me  just  because  he's  paid  for  a  glass 
or  two  of  father's  rotten  spirits.  But  it  had  to  be  done. 
It  was  business.  We  didn't  have  money  enough  for 
another  waitress.  Kassian 's  well  off,  though ;  that  is,  if 
his  farm  is  properly  kept  up.  And  I'll  see  to  that. 
When  I'm  once  mistress  there,  I  can  help  father  out  a 
bit,  and  he'll  get  another  girl  from  Kuf stein. — I  tell 
you,  I'm  sick  of  letting  men  paw  me  inside  the  inn, 
whose  faces  I  'd  slap  if  they  touched  me  outside. ' ' 

"And  Kassian 's  mother?" 

"She  hates  me,  of  course.  No  woman  wants  to  give 
up  her  place  to  another.  But  I'm  kind  to  her.  And 
anyway,  she  can't  last  long,  can  she?" 

' '  I  don 't  know.  It 's  very  curious.  Since  you  've  been 
in  the  house,  she  seems  so  much  better.  I'm  not  sure 
but  what " 

Eosine  jumped  up  and  came  to  the  garden  gate. 

"She's  not  going  to  get  well!"  she  whispered.  "Oh, 
she  couldn't  do  that.  It  would  be  too  mean." 

Then,  with  fists  clenched,  she  burst  out — 

"But  it'd  be  just  like  her — the  old  cat.  She's  never 
let  a  woman  come  near  Kassian  all  these  years.  She 
wasn't  going  to  share  things  with  anyone  else.  But 

she  shan't  make  a  fool  of  me.  I'll  fix  her.  I'll 

Hush!  Here  comes  Kassian.  Don't  tell  him  what  I've 
said." 

Kassian  rolled  up  the  road  like  a  ship  under  full  sail. 


88        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

His  hair  and  beard  were  newly  clipped,  his  clothes 
brushed.  Also,  he  was  sober. 

"We'll  be  off  now,  Rosine,"  he  said,  after  bowing  to 
Edwards.  "But  we  needn't  hurry.  Thou'rt  sure  of  a 
seat.  Thou  know'st  why." 

"I'm  going  to  sit  in  his  mother's  old  place  in  church," 
Rosine  explained.  " Why  shouldn 't  I ?  It's  been  empty 
long  enough.  And  it'll  be  a  sort  of  a  sign.  The  first 
seat  in  the  pew  under  the  pulpit. — How  is  she  ? ' ' 

"Asleep,  I  think.  I  didn't  say  good-by,  so  as  not  to 
disturb  her.  She  told  me  the  pain  was  on  her  again, 
and  she'd  be  taking  one  of  the  powders.  Rosine,  I'd 
have  time  for  a  glass,  wouldn't  I?" 

"For  one, — Kassian.     Only  hurry." 

They  disappeared  into  the  inn.  Edwards  walked  on 
slowly  down  the  slope  towards  the  church,  past  Kas- 
sian's  house,  that  lay  still  and  apparently  empty  in  the 
peaceful  warmth  of  the  spring  sunshine. 

In  the  graveyard,  that  surrounded  the  little  church 
on  all  sides,  was  gathered  the  entire  population  of 
Thiersee.  Some  of  the  people  were  talking  in  whispers 
among  themselves;  others  were  communing  with  their 
dead.  At  the  foot  of  each  mound  was  a  small  battered 
tin  vessel,  full  of  holy  water, — some  of  them  looked  less 
battered  than  others ;  and  beside  these  newer  graves  were 
silent  groups  of  the  older  men  and  women,  the  men 
weeding  out  the  grass  or  flattening  down  the  earth,  the 
women  telling  their  beads,  and  all  of  them,  from  time 
to  time,  dipping  their  fingers  in  the  battered  vessel  and 
sprinkling  the  mound  with  holy  water.  ' '  Assuaging  the 
Flames  of  Purgatory,"  as  it  is  called.  For  each  drop 
of  holy  water,  sped  on  by  the  prayers  of  those  who 
scatter  it,  finds  its  way  straight  to  the  tormenting  but 
cleansing  fires  of  Purgatory,  that  torment  then  the  less 
while  they  but  cleanse  the  more. 

In  the  minds  of  the  Catholic  Tyrolese  there  is  little 
or  no  place  for  the  Hell  of  Protestant  Christendom. 
All  their  dead  are  sure  of  bliss  eventually.  They  are 
too  kind-hearted,  too  logical,  too  religious,  to  believe  in 
eternal  damnation. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        89 

The  church  itself  was  by  now  half  full.  On  the  pulpit- 
side  sat  all  the  women,  young  and  old.  On  the  other  side 
were  places  for  the  fathers  and  the  grandfathers.  All 
the  unmarried  men  stood.  One  or  two  of  them  stood  in 
the  aisle,  beside  the  pew  where  their  mothers  sat  or  their 
aunts.  These  were  the  bachelors,  the  hopelessly  ineli- 
gible. And  by  so  standing,  they  ruled  themselves  out  of 
the  class  of  future  fathers  and  husbands.  But  most  of 
the  younger  men  were  gathered  at  the  back  of  the  church, 
or  in  a  gallery  above,  in  the  space  around  the  organ. 
Only  the  boys,  that  they  might  be  kept  out  of  mischief, 
occupied  the  first  four  lines  of  seats  directly  in  front 
of  the  older  married  men.  But  they  exercised  their  mas- 
culine rights  by  refusing  to  sit.  They  stood  upright  in 
their  places,  or  leaned  forward  over  the  back  of  the  seat 
in  front,  displaying  an  expanse  of  tightly-drawn  jacket 
and  leathern  hose  with  green  ribbons  at  the  bare  brown 
knees. 

Edwards  found  a  place  near  the  door,  just  beside  the 
holy-water  font.  The  service  had  already  begun  with 
the  long  ceremony  of  the  Blessing  of  the  Palms  that 
precedes  the  Palm  Sunday  mass.  The  choir,  at  the  back 
of  the  church,  around  the  organ  in  the  gallery,  sang 
an  "Et  cum  Spirtu  tuo"  and  an  "Amen"  now  and 
then.  During  the  intervals,  the  priest's  deep  penetrat- 
ing voice  was  interrupted  by  the  noise  of  heavy  shoes,  as 
people  wandered  in  from  the  graveyard  leisurely,  know- 
ing that  they  had  plenty  of  time  before  the  mass  proper 
began. 

In  the  sanctuary,  his  lips  moving  as  he  read  his  office, 
sat  a  very,  very  old  priest,  quite  bent  double  with  age, 
his  huge  head  of  snowy  hair  shaking  over  his  book.  So 
uncertain  were  his  hands  that  a  small  acolyte  stood  be- 
fore him,  who,  at  a  sign  from  the  old  man,  turned  the 
leaves  of  his  Breviary. 

Suddenly  Edwards  was  aware  that  the  center  of  in- 
terest among  all  these  assembled  people  had  shifted  from 
the  parish  priest  at  the  altar  to  some  other  focus. 

An  emaciated  hand  was  stretched  across  him  towards 
the  holy-water  font.  Somehow  the  hand  seemed  fa- 


90        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

miliar.  But  a  sudden  uneasy  rustling  among  the  women 
distracted  his  attention.  He  wondered  what  had  caused 
it.  A  few  moments  went  by ;  several  people  passed  up  the 
center  aisle.  And  then  Edwards  felt  the  blood  mounting 
to  his  forehead,  for  he  knew  that  every  person  in  the 
church,  except  the  priest  with  his  ministrants  in  the  sanc- 
tuary, was  staring  at  himself. 

His  hands  soon  told  him  that,  so  far  as  he  knew, 
nothing  was  wrong  with  what  he  had  on:  the  striped 
trousers  and  the  ancient  frock-coat,  that  had  been  his 
uniform,  Sundays  and  week-days,  on  all  momentous  oc- 
casions during  the  last  three  weeks.  The  shoddy,  stiff 
hat,  with  its  inked  spots,  was  in  his  hand,  not  on  his 
head.  What  could  be  the  matter? 

Then  a  new  thought  gripped  him. 

These  people  had  found  him  out — knew  who  and  what 
he  was — knew  that  he  had  no  legal  right  to  practice, 
that  he  was  amenable  to  the  law;  knew,  perhaps,  from 
some  mysterious  source,  of  other  things  that  he  thought 
hidden  far  away  in  another  country. 

So  it  was  all  up.     They  had  found  him  out. 

And  then,  somehow,  his  eyes  happened  to  follow  the 
glance  of  a  man  beside  him  which  wandered  from  Ed- 
wards' face  to  a  certain  seat  on  the  women's  side  of  the 
church,  half-way  up  the  aisle. 

"My  mother's  old  seat.  The  first  one  on  the  aisle, 
just  under  the  pulpit.  Empty  for  so  long." 

That  was  what  Kassian  had  said.  Edwards  remem- 
bered now. 

But  the  seat  was  no  longer  empty. 

Edwards  could  see  nothing  except  the  bent  shoulders 
in  the  heavy  black  silk  shawl,  and  the  outline  of  the 
strangely-shaped  high  furry  hat  that  all  old  women  in 
Thiersee  wear.  Yet  he  knew  that  Kassian 's  mother  had 
come  to  claim  her  own  before  it  was  too  late. 

How  she  had  come,  in  what  strength,  he  could  not  tell. 
But  there  she  was. 

"Let  us  go  forth  in  peace,"  chanted  the  priest.  And 
the  choir  answered. 

The  Procession  with  the  blessed  palms  started  down 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        91 

the  middle  aisle.  The  old  ecclesiastic,  led  by  one  acolyte 
and  holding  heavily  to  the  shoulder  of  another,  went 
shuffling  on  in  front  of  Father  Mathias,  a  palm  in  his 
unsteady  hand.  Round  the  church  they  went;  it  was 
but  a  small  compass  to  make.  Then  outside,  and  in  again 
through  the  front  door.  They  were  regaining  the  altar 
when  the  crowd  at  the  door,  that  had  closed  behind  them, 
parted  once  more,  and  Kassian,  with  his  hand  slipped 
through  Rosine 's  arm,  hurried  up  the  aisle. 

Every  neck  in  the  church  was  craned  forward.  The 
organist  took  up  the  "Introit,"  but  he  had  to  sing  it 
through  alone.  No  voice  in  the  choir  joined  in. 

Edwards  stood  on  tiptoe  to  see  the  meeting.  There 
was  but  little  to  see. 

Kassian  halted  for  a  moment  beside  the  occupied  seat. 
Then,  supposing  that  some  stranger  had  taken  it  by  mis- 
take, he  leaned  forward  and  touched  the  occupant  on  the 
shoulder.  The  bowed  head  was  raised.  And  he  looked 
down  into  his  mother's  sunken,  blazing  eyes. 

For  what  seemed  a  long  time  they  glared  at  one  an- 
other. 

Rosine  had  shrunk  away.  Kassian,  however,  drew  her 
to  his  side,  bent  down,  and  signed  to  his  mother  to  move 
along  into  an  empty  seat  in  the  next  pew. 

Then  the  old  woman  rose  in  her  wrath. 

Her  thin  bowed  shoulders  were  thrown  back,  her  head 
went  up,  and  disregarding  Rosine  utterly,  she  made  an 
imperious  gesture  with  her  shaking  right  hand — a  ges- 
ture that  summed  up  in  a  second  the  unquestioned  au- 
thority of  years,  and  that  called  her  son  to  his  accus- 
tomed place  in  the  aisle  at  his  mother's  side.  To  the 
place  of  the  older  unmarried  men  (there  were  but 
four  of  them  all  told), — the  men  who  would  never 
marry. 

For  a  moment  Kassian  seemed  about  to  obey.  But 
Rosine  laid  a  hand  on  his  arm.  And  that  was  enough. 

He  did  not  dare  look  at  his  mother;  but  he  turned 
from  her,  took  Rosine  by  the  hand,  and  in  the  sight  of 
the  whole  congregation  walked  with  her  still  farther  up 
the  aisle,  and  stood  by  her  side  near  the  steps  of  the  sane- 


92        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

tuary,  where  every  eye  in  the  church  could  see  them. 

Now,  in  the  House  of  God,  no  man  may  stand  side  by 
side  with  a  woman  at  any  time,  except  when  he  stands 
with  her  before  the  altar  for  the  Sacrament  of  Holy 
Matrimony.  And  Kassian's  action  was  a  sacrament  in 
the  eyes  of  every  man  and  woman  there.  After  this, 
the  Church  might  add  her  blessing,  or  she  might  not; 
but  the  union  of  these  two  people  was  an  accomplished 
fact. 

Everyone  knew  it.  Even  the  priest  at  the  altar,  as 
he  turned  around  for  the  first  "Dominus  vobiscum," 
must  have  seen  and  understood. 

She  understood  too,  the  proud  old  woman,  sitting  alone 
in  her  seat  below  the  pulpit,  racked  with  pain,  but  rigid 
and  unbroken  still. 

During  the  mass  Edwards  edged  his  way  softly  up 
the  aisle  towards  where  Kassian's  mother  stood  or  knelt 
or  genuflected  with  the  other  women.  Her  iron  will  held 
her  body  to  its  accustomed  obedience  until  the  genuflec- 
tion in  the  last  Gospel,  when  she  stumbled  and  pitched 
forward.  Edwards  caught  her  in  his  arms. 

Five  minutes  later,  he  was  kneeling  beside  her  in  the 
sacristy.  The  priest,  still  in  his  vestments,  hovered  near, 
while  Kassian  stood  anxiously  on  one  foot,  twirling  his 
hat  in  his  great  clumsy  hands.  Rosine  had  disappeared. 

The  old  woman,  bedded  upon  the  rusty  cassocks  of 
the  acolytes,  opened  her  eyes,  and  stared  for  one  long, 
reproachful  moment  into  Kassian's  face.  Edwards 
lifted  her  head,  but  she  motioned  aside  the  glass  that 
he  pressed  to  her  lips. 

"Herr  Doktor,"  she  whispered  hurriedly,  "I  have 
deceived  you.  I  don't  want  to  die  with  a  lie  in  my 
heart.  I — I  thought  you  didn't  know  enough  to  make 
me  well.  And  I  wanted  so  to  keep  the  house  in  order 
for  Kassian.  And  to  keep  her  out — the  hussy!  So  I 
sent  Oberlaitner 's  Toni, — the  red-headed  boy  who  swings 
the  incense, — I — I  gave  him  a  '  kreutzer ' x  to  go  and  see 
the  Herr  Benefiziat." 

i  "Kreutzer"=;  2  heller  =  one  cent :  the  obsolete  form  of  Aus- 
trian currency — still  used  by  country  people. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        93 

She  pointed  an  unsteady  finger  at  the  old  priest,  who 
sat  in  a  corner  of  the  tiny  sacristy,  nodding,  almost 
unconscious,  in  the  weakness  of  his  extreme  old  age. 

"He — he  knows  many  secret  cures.  Only  now  he  is 
so  old. — When  I  was  a  young  girl,  he  made  many  mir- 
acles.— Not  like  you,  Herr  Doktor — with  the  knives.  But 
with  herbs — and  papers — and  many  prayers." 

"And  what  did  he  tell  you  to  do?"  Edwards  asked, 
as  the  old  woman's  lips  quivered  into  silence. 

His  interest  was  roused.  What  had  given  this  weak 
body  such  strength,  even  if  it  had  only  been  for  a  few 
hours  ? 

"He  sent  some  blessed  bitter  herbs  from  Loretto. — 
I  was  to  mix  them  with  holy  water, — and  drink  it, — 
fasting, — after  I  had  told  my  beads  five  times  over, — on 
my  knees,  before  the  crucifix. — Toni  thought  he  said 
'five  times.' — But  he  has  no  teeth,  and  mumbles  so. — I 
prayed  my  Rosary  through  for  twice  five  times, — to 
make  sure. — And  on  Palm  Sunday,  the  Herr  Benefiziat 
said, — on  Palm  Sunday  I  should  be  well. — I  was  to  lay 
my  sickness  in  the  arms  of  the  Mother  of  God  as  she  fol- 
lowed her  Son  riding  into  Jerusalem." 

Father  Mathias  had  begun  to  whisper  excitedly  in  the 
ear  of  the  old  ecclesiastic;  but  the  nodding,  broken  old 
man  seemed  not  to  hear  or  understand. 

The  voice  of  Kassian's  mother  was  growing  weaker. 

"This  morning, — this  Palm  Sunday  morning, — the 
answer  came.  My  answer. — At  last. — I  was  raised  up. 

— I  dressed. — I  walked  to  church.  I but  it  was  not 

the  will  of  God  that  I  should  be  healed. — Herr  Doktor, 
forgive  me. — I  did  not  take  the  powders, — not  many  of 
them. — I  only  put  a  little  into  my  bottle  of  blessed  Lor- 
etto herbs. — Bend  down  closer,  Herr  Doktor, — closer. — 
You  said  once, — when  you  first  put  me  to  sleep  with 
the  needle, — you  said, — some  day,  I  should  never  wake 
up. — And  you  said  you  would  know — when. — Do  you 
understand? — To-morrow,  I  shall  not  wake  up. — You 

will  not  let  me,  will  you? And  now  I  will  make  my 

peace  with  God." 

She  beckoned  to  the  priest. 


94        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Edwards  withdrew  quietly  and  waited  outside  in  the 
sun  that  beat  warmly  on  the  whitewashed  wall  of  the 
church.  After  some  moments  he  saw  the  old  Herr 
Benefiziat,  his  "rival  practitioner,"  go  tottering  by  on 
the  arm  of  a  red-haired  acolyte.  Then  the  parish  priest 
looked  out  from  the  sacristy  door. 

''She  has  had  the  Last  Sacraments,"  he  said.  "Now 
we  must  get  her  home  to  die.  I  suppose  there  is  no 
chance  of  her  lasting  out  the  night?" 

Edwards  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Her  vitality  is  marvelous,"  he  answered.  "Even 
now  her  pulse  is  firm  and  fairly  strong.  She  might  last 
a  week — she " 

He  paused,  and  his  mouth  set  in  sudden  determi- 
nation. 

"But  one  never  can  tell,"  he  added.  "I  daresay  that, 
after  all,  she'll  pass  in  her  sleep  to-night." 


CHAPTER  IX 

KASSIAN  's  mother  was  buried  on  Tuesday  in  Holy  Week. 
And  on  Easter  Monday  the  parish  priest  made  Kassian 
and  Rosine  man  and  wife.  There  was  no  sense  in  wait- 
ing, Kassian  explained,  especially  when  his  mother  had 
been  sick  so  long  anyway,  and  there  was  so  much  work 
in  the  fields  to  be  done. 

"And  he's  quite  right,  you  know,"  said  Father  Math- 
ias,  as  he  welcomed  Edwards,  on  the  evening  of  Easter 
Tuesday,  at  the  door  of  his  house.  "The  modern  cus- 
tom of  mourning,  with  all  its  hideous  accessories,  is 
wholly  out  of  place  in  a  Christian  community.  But  do 
come  in.  I'm  glad  to  have  a  sight  of  you  again." 

Edwards  had  got  into  the  habit  of  dropping  in  at  the 
"Widum"  on  the  evenings  of  Sundays  and  Feast-days, 
when  the  priest's  work  was  over,  and  he  could  sit  at 
ease  before  a  cold  supper  and  talk. 

"Sunday,  Monday,  and  Tuesday,"  he  sighed,  as  he 
motioned  Edwards  to  a  seat  at  his  table;  "three  festivals, 
all  with  long  services.  Coming  so  soon,  too,  after  the 
hard  tug  of  Holy  Week.  No  wonder  so  many  of  our 
men  go  smash  after  Easter,  soul  as  well  as  body.  It's  a 
dangerous  time  for  us  priests,  I  tell  you.  Anything 
new?" 

"I  saw  Kassian  and  his  bride  drive  off  yesterday  for 
two  days'  honeymoon  in  Kuf stein.  She'll  be  wanting 
to  show  him  off.  I  only  hope  he  doesn't  forget  to  post 
my  letters.  It's  a  perfect  shame  that  I  haven't  written 
to  thank  Professor  Schroeder  before  this.  But  I  wanted 
to  send  him  a  record  of  Kassian 's  mother's  case.  And 
I  simply  hadn't  time  to  put  it  together  till  now." 

' '  Don 't  lose  touch  with  the  outside  world, ' '  interposed 
the  priest,  as  he  filled  Edwards'  glass  with  the  light  red 
wine  of  the  country.  "Not  to  do  so  costs  an  effort. 

95 


96        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

But  make  it.  "We're  all  too  closely  bottled  up  in  this 
valley  of  ours.  That's  why  I'm  taking  so  much  trouble 
about  our  Passion-Play  this  summer." 

"Tell  me  something  of  it." 

"If  I  do,  you'll  lose  an  ideal.  You  mustn't  think, 
like  so  many  outsiders,  that  it's  only  Oberammergau 
that  ever  had  a  Passion-Play.  In  the  old  days,  when 
the  Church  provided  the  people's  theater,  when  there 
were  no  newspapers  to  read,  and  plenty  of  people  who 
couldn't  have  read  them  anyway, — much  as  many  of 
our  people  can't  to  this  day,  here  in  Thiersee, — why, 
then,  every  village  of  any  pretensions  had  its  own  play, 
— a  'Mysterium,'  written  by  some  local  poet,  usually 
a  monk  of  sorts.  I  suppose  abuses  crept  in  that  made 
the  plays  impossible  after  a  while,  though  I've  always 
had  a  weakness  for  abuses  myself.  Our  particular 
brand  of  Catholicism  is  full  of  them.  I  could  name 
you  half  a  dozen  liturgical  anomalies  which  the  Holy 
Office  in  Rome  has  condemned  and  tried  to  remove  time 
and  time  again.  Always  without  success,  because  the 
people  cling  to  them  so  tenaciously.  And  in  the  end  the 
Holy  Office  says  to  the  complaining  bishop:  'Tolerari 
potest' — 'You'll  have  to  put  up  with  it.'  That  ought  to 

be  the  motto  for  a  lot  of  things  in  Tyrol. Well,  many 

of  these  Passion-Play  texts  were  lost.  Some  have  wan- 
dered into  learned  libraries.  You'll  find  several  manu- 
scripts in  Munich.  The  Thiersee  text  was  found  in  the 
parish  archives  by  my  predecessor.  A  good  man,  but  a 
saint.  And  this  is  no  place  for  saints.  You  see,  he 
didn't  know  how  to  say  'Tolerari  potest.'  ' 

' '  You  mean  the  priest  who 's  buried  under  the  thresh- 
old of  the  church  door,  so  that  he  can  hear  his  people 
walking  over  him  into  the  House  of  God,  while  he  him- 
self, who  once  preceded  them,  isn't  worthy  to  follow 
even  as  the  last  worshiper  of  all  ?  I  always  thought  that 
epitaph  pathological." 

"You're  right.  But  what  the  fellow  suffered! 
Thiersee  people  and  their  ways  killed  him.  He  got 
it  into  his  head  that  their  morals,  or  their  lack  of  them, 
was  all  his  fault;  that  if  he'd  only  scourged  himself  a 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        97 

bit  more,  said  a  lot  of  extra  prayers  and  fasted  three 
times  a- week,  there 'd  have  been  fewer  babies  born  out 
of  wedlock.  Poor  old  Holtzmann !  Then  he  had  trouble 
with  the  Benefiziat.  You  see,  there 's  an  ancient  benefice 
here:  a  piece  of  ground,  bought  in  the  middle  ages  by 
an  extinct  Benedictine  monastery,  and  given  to  our 
church  to  support  a  sort  of  assistant  to  the  parish  priest. 
The  right  of  nomination  belongs  now  to  an  abbot  far 
off  somewhere  in  South  Tyrol.  And  the  nomination  is 
for  life.  The  ecclesiastic  who  holds  it  has  no  parochial 
duties,  except  to  say  mass  and  assist  the  'Pfarrer'  if  he 
needs  him.  And  the  bit  of  land,  with  the  house  on  it, 
brings  in  enough  to  keep  him  in  decency.  But — between 
ourselves — the  abbot  used  this  benefice,  at  the  last  ap- 
pointment, to  get  rid  of  a  man  he  couldn't  well  keep  in 
his  monastery  without  grave  scandal.  I  don 't  even  know 
what  the  scandal  was.  Though  I  can  imagine.  But  even 
the  man  who  caused  it  has  forgotten  it  by  now.  You 
saw  him  to-day.  He 's  over  ninety. ' ' 

"You  mean  my  rival  practitioner?" 

"The  very  same.  That  was  his  great  bone  of  conten- 
tion with  my  predecessor.  Imagine  them  shut  up  here 
together:  this  Benefiziat  from  South  Tyrol,  steeped  in 
the  Italian  form  of  our  religion,  and  poor  Holtzmann,  a 
really  saintly,  high-strung  young  man  from  the  north, 
whose  faith  was  a  thing  of  fire  and  flame,  intolerant 
of  abuses  and  superstitions.  You  can  guess  what  hap- 
pened. The  Benefiziat  had  some  slight  knowledge  of 
medicine ;  indeed,  I  think  his  original  scandal  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  a  misuse  of  this  knowledge.  Anyway, 
he  grafted  what  he  knew  on  what  the  people  here  be- 
lieved. And  I'm  told  that  he  made  some  really  remark- 
able cures, — theatrical  ones,  of  course, — that  impressed 
the  multitude.  But  my  unfortunate  predecessor  got  all 
the  blame.  Naturally,  the  medical  authorities  com- 
plained to  the  ecclesiastical;  then  the  latter  sent  word 
to  Holtzmann  that  the  quackery  must  stop.  How  could 
he  stop  it?  The  Benefiziat  went  calmly  on,  curing  peo- 
ple and  making  long  noses  at  the  Prince-Bishop.  He 
could  not  be  removed,  you  see.  He  was  under  the  juris- 


98        THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

diction  of  a  very  distant  abbot,  who  made  long  noses  too, 
and  who,  as  you  may  imagine,  didn  't  want  the  Benefiziat 
thrown  back  on  his  hands.  And  so,  gradually,  poor 
Holtzmann  got  it  into  his  head  that  the  Benefiziat  had 
sold  his  soul  to  the  devil,  that  his  cures  were  accomplished 
by  that  gentleman's  aid.  Oh,  the  devil  was  a  very  real 
personage  to  Holtzmann,  you  may  be  sure.  He  set  to 
work  to  drive  him  out,  out  of  the  Benefiziat  and  out  of 
Thiersee,  by  means  of  a  Passion-Play. 

"He  had  worked  here  for  ten  years,  and  could  see  no 
progress.  Indeed,  things  grew  worse,  as  communica- 
tion with  the  outside  world  became  somewhat  easier, 
and  it  was  possible  to  drive  to  Kufstein  in  a  day. 
Farmers,  who  had  once  been  honest,  went  into  town  to 
sell  their  butter,  and  with  part  of  the  price  bought  mar- 
garine, that  they  brought  home  and  mixed  with  their 
next  lot,  so  that  they  had  twice  as  much  butter  to  sell 
as  before.  They  began  to  adulterate  the  milk;  used 
chemicals  to  preserve  it,  and  all  that.  But  what  hit 
poor  Holtzmann  hardest  wasn't  thieving,  or  hatred,  or 
even  murder  (we  usually  have  one  manslaughter  a-year 
at  least),  but  what  he  called  lechery.  I  think  'lechery' 
is  a  horrid  slimy  word  myself.  It's  a  big  mistake  to 
make  such  a  fuss  about  ordinary  bodily  functions.  And 
calling  them  by  nasty  sounding  names  don't  make  them 
any  prettier. — Well,  Holtzmann  couldn't  see  that.  He 
could  only  see  the  devil.  He  preached;  and  in  the  con- 
fessional he  refused  people  Absolution.  They  say  that 
when  he  opened  the  shutter  on  his  side  of  the  confes- 
sional-box, he  used  to  ask  the  penitent  on  the  other  a 
single  preliminary  question:  'Are  you  keeping  com- 
pany?' If  the  penitent  said  'Yes,' — bang!  would  go 
the  shutter;  and  that  was  all  they  saw  of  Holtzmann 
until  they  could  say  'No.'  But  as  every  normal  healthy 
young  man  and  girl  was  obliged  to  say  'Yes,'  a  large 
class  of  the  community  was  excluded  from  the  sacra- 
ments. And  that  wouldn't  do  any  good,  would  it?  The 
number  of  unexpected  babies  did  not  diminish.  In- 
creased rather. — You  needn't  look  so  scandalized.  You 
want  to  remember  this  about  our  people.  They  are  not 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD        99 

lecherous.  You'll  never  find  a  man  here  who  makes  it 
his  pleasure  to  seduce  women.  A  young  fellow  has  one 
girl,  and  he  sticks  by  her.  They  can't  marry  until  he 
has  done  his  military  service  and  can  make  a  home  for 
her.  But  that's  no  reason  in  their  eyes  why  they 
shouldn't  have  a  baby  or  two.  And  they  do  have  them. 
Now,  really,  what's  so  extraordinary  about  that?" 

"But  the  Passion-Play  ? "  interposed  Edwards.  Never 
before  had  he  found  the  priest  in  such  an  expansive 
mood;  a  reaction,  evidently,  from  the  strain  and  over- 
work of  the  last  ten  days.  His  heart  warmed  to  the 
strange  fat  little  man. 

"It  was  the  extra  babies  that  made  the  Passion-Play. 
The  babies  and  the  devil;  they  were  the  same  thing  to 
Holtzmann.  When  he  found  the  text  of  the  old  parish 
'Mystery,'  he  thought  it  had  been  sent  to  him  directly 
from  the  Almighty's  throne.  In  an  instant  he  saw  his 
way  clear.  He  would  revise  the  text,  and  give  the  play 
at  Thiersee.  Not  a  big  public  performance  like  Oberam- 
mergau.  Who  would  come  to  Thiersee  ?  Who  had  ever 
heard  of  it?  But  he  would  invite  the  local  magnates; 
and  he  told  himself  that  three  or  four  months  of  re- 
hearsing, as  well  as  the  performances  themselves,  would 
work  wonders  for  the  men  and  women  of  his  congrega- 
tion. They  could  not  be  brought  into  such  close  touch 
with  personages  sacred  and  holy  without  seeing  and  ab- 
horring the  blackness  of  their  own  souls.  Ah,  dear  me ! 
Poor  old  Holtzmann !  His  play  was  a  success,  in  a  way ; 
done  with  the  barest  accessories  under  the  open  sky.  It 
is  impressive  in  its  utter  simplicity,  as  you'll  see  for 
yourself.  We  give  it  in  the  summer  now.  But  he  put 
it  on,  for  the  first  time,  at  Easter.  And  sure  enough, 
the  Lent  that  preceded  the  Paschal  Feast  that  year  was 
a  very  good  Lent  indeed.  The  best  that  Holtzmann  had 
ever  known.  The  people  threw  themselves  into  the  play 
like  excited  children;  they  came  often  to  mass;  and  the 
shutter  of  the  confessional-box  was  seldom  slammed  in 
anyone's  face  those  days. — Well,  to  cut  it  short,  Holtz- 
mann had  a  glorious  Easter.  The  play  was  given  twice. 
Perhaps  two  hundred  people  came  to  see  it.  Even  a 


100      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

wandering  English  bishop  on  his  way  north  from  Rome. 
And — and — less  than  a  year  after  the  last  performance, 

there  was  a  perfectly  astounding  crop  of Humph! 

you  can  guess  of  what.  The  young  fellow  who  played 
St.  John  was  the  first  to  get  the  confessional-shutter 
slammed  in  his  handsome  face.  He  laughed,  yes  he  did. 
And  his  girl  (they  are  married  now.  She  played  Mary 
Magdalene )— his  girl  was  waiting  outside  the  church  for 
him.  She  and  a  lot  of  others  didn't  even  give  Holtz- 
mann  a  chance  to  slam  his  shutter.  They  simply  kept 
away.  And  then  Joseph  of  Arimathea  was  caught  fal- 
sifying butter  at  Kufstein  Market, — and  got  two  weeks  in 
jail.  That  broke  poor  Holtzmann's  heart.  He  simply 
went  to  bed  and  died." 

The  priest  paused,  shading  his  weak  eyes  with  his 
hand.  Then  he  shook  himself  and  heaved  up  from  his 
chair. 

"I'll  show  you  the  text  as  I've  revised  it,"  he  said, 
waddling  towards  the  door  of  his  bedroom.  "I  want 
you  to  go  over  it  carefully,  because  I've  made  up  my 
mind  to  cast  you  for  Pilate." 

He  disappeared  into  the  next  room,  where  Edwards 
could  hear  him  puffing  and  snorting  as  he  rummaged 
amidst  a  mass  of  papers.  He  was  gone  some  moments, 
and  Edwards  stretched  out  his  hand  idly  towards  a  book 
that  the  priest  had  been  reading  when  he  had  arrived 
for  supper.  To  his  surprise,  it  was  an  abstruse  work  on 
Astronomy,  with  puzzling  maps  of  starry  heavens, 
strange  signs  and  impossibly  immense  distances.  Be- 
tween the  pages  lay  several  loose  sheets  of  notepaper, 
covered  with  penciled  scribblings  in  the  priest's  hand- 
writing. Verses,  apparently. 

Here  was  another  mystery.  An  ecclesiastic  who  read 
Astronomy  with  his  supper,  and  scribbled  poetry  for 
amusement. 

Edwards  had  only  time  to  return  the  book  to  its 
place  beside  his  friend's  plate,  when  Father  Mathias 
reappeared,  his  hands  full  of  loose,  type-written 
sheets. 

"No,  no,"  he  went  on,  taking  up  the  conversation 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      101 

where  he  had  dropped  it,  "poor  Holtzmann  was  all 
wrong.  His  play  had  been  a  great  success.  Only  he 
hadn't  recognized  success  when  he  saw  it.  For  during 
all  those  months,  the  winter  of  that  year,  the  most 
dangerous  months  with  us,  when  we  live  so  close  to- 
gether that  all  that's  worst  in  us  has  a  chance  to  grow  for 
lack  of  good  fresh  air, — during  all  that  time  he  had  kept 
his  people  interested  in  their  new  game — their  Passion- 
Play.  The  sacred  personages  they  represented  meant  lit- 
tle or  nothing  to  them.  They  would  have  acted  a  comic 
opera  with  the  same  seriousness.  Gipfel-Paul  would 
have  been  Gipfel-Paul  still,  whether  he  played  St.  Peter 
or  Falstaff.  But  in  either  case  he  had  a  new  amusement 
that  kept  him  from  beating  his  wife.  What  did  it  mat- 
ter if,  in  the  excitement  of  the  play-acting,  other  excite- 
ments were  aroused  ?  if  the  young  people,  because  of  their 
unconscious  refraining  from  certain  things  while  their 
minds  were  filled  with  delight  in  their  unaccustomed  im- 
portance, were  swept  off  their  feet  in  the  reaction  as  soon 
as  the  Play  was  over? — Since  I've  been  here  at  Thiersee 
we've  given  our  'Mystery'  every  five  years.  And  the 
winters  and  springs  of  the  Passion-Play  years  are  pleas- 
ant times  for  one  who  has  the  cure  of  souls." 

He  sat  down  beside  Edwards  and  began  checking  off 
the  names  of  the  "dramatis  persona?."  Edwards  had 
never  seen  him  so  excited;  his  round  face  shone  with 
enthusiasm. 

"You  see  for  yourself,"  he  rattled  on,  "our  text  is 
quite  above  the  average.  Poor  Holtzmann  added  a  bit 
to  it;  he  was  something  of  a  poet.  And  I've  put  in  a 
touch  here  and  there.  The  chorus,  for  instance.  That/s 
my  idea.  Not  a  lot  of  gray-bearded  old  farmers  in 
flowing  white  garments  and  badly-fitting  tights,  paired 
off  with  females,  fat  and  thin,  the  riff-raff  left  over  from 
the  more  important  roles.  No,  sir.  Our  chorus  are  just 
the  children  of  this  village ;  the  spectators  on  the  stage, 
as  it  were.  Dressed  as  they're  dressed  here  every  day, 
only  cleaner.  And  one  of  them,  usually  one  of  the  older 
girls,  does  the  speaking.  There  isn't  much.  You  see, 
all  you  want  of  that  kind  of  a  chorus  is  that  it  should 


102      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

be  able  to  walk.  And  only  healthy  children,  who  go  bare- 
foot most  of  the  year,  know  how  to  walk  gracefully. 
At  least,  'tis  so  in  Thiersee.  Oh,  you'll  be  surprised  to 
see  how  well  it  goes.  Children,  normal  children,  are  all 
born  actors,  especially  boys.  I  've  always  wished  I  could 
have  seen  Shakespeare  played  as  he  was  written.  I  tell 
you  I've  had  lads  here  who  could  have  done  Rosalind, 
and  not  so  badly  either." 

He  looked  up  at  Edwards,  scanning  his  profile  against 
the  light. 

"I  don't  care  for  your  long  mustache,"  he  said  judi- 
cially. ''You'll  look  better  without  it.  And  you 
couldn't  play  Pontius  Pilate  with  a  mustache,  you 
know." 

Edwards  interposed. 

"But,  Hochwiirden,  you  don't  really  mean  me  to " 

Father  Mathias  cut  him  short,  moving  closer  to  him 
and  spreading  out  the  type-written  sheets  before  him  on 
the  table. 

"Yes,  I  do.  I've  been  simply  put  to  my  wits'  end  to 
find  a  proper  Pilate.  Imagine  how  any  of  our  older 
men  would  look  if  I  shaved  off  their  beards.  Why,  they  'd 
rather  appear  before  the  public  without  trousers.  There 
isn't  a  single  decent  chin  among  them.  Our  women 
have  got  all  the  chins.  Haven't  you  ever  noticed  that? 
Oh  yes,  my  friend,  you  were  made  for  Pilate.  And 
then,  see  here.  You  want  to  be  one  of  us,  don't  you? 
Break  down  barriers  and  all  that?  Well,  this  will  do 
it.  Only,  to  get  the  full  flavor  of  the  Play,  you  ought 
to  have  spent  a  winter  among  us. ' ' 

His  kindly  eyes  closed;  he  began  drawing  and  scrib- 
bling on  the  margin  of  the  papers  before  him. 

"A  winter  in  Thiersee!"  he  sighed.  "Shut  in,  all 
those  months.  It's  fearsome.  Life  gets  to  be  like  a 
witches'  cauldron,  full  of  incongruous  messes, — all  sorts 
of  horrid  unclean  matters,  swimming  in  the  brew  to- 
gether with  simple  honest  things:  bits  of  grass,  flowers, 
what  you  like,  side  by  side  with  the  insides  of  toads  and 
snakes '  eyes  and  greeny  lumps  of  corruption.  Ough-h-h ! 
— And  cooking, — cooking  all  together  over  a  slow  fire,  till 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      103 

the  rottenness  of  the  rotten  things  permeates  the  whole 
mass,  and  it  stinks  to  heaven. ' ' 

Edwards  smiled. 

"No  doubt,"  he  said.  "But  then  you  come  along  with 
your  disinfectant, — your  Play.  A  sort  of  clean-smelling 
carbolic  acid  preparation.  And  you  dump  a  little  into 
the  kettle.  It  doesn't  make  things  smell  much  better. 
But  you  know  that  the  living,  swarming  evil  things  in  the 
kettle  have  been  scotched." 

"Exactly.  You  take  my  thought  exactly.  But  what 
would  you?  Think  of  a  Thiersee  winter.  Let's  say 
you  have  an  antipathy  for  some  one  man;  he  has  over- 
reached you  in  business,  has  a  quicker  tongue  than  you, 
and  makes  you  appear  a  fool,  when  the  one  woman  is 
looking  on  whose  interest  means  everything.  And  you 
are  chained  like  a  galley-slave  to  that  same  man.  You 
meet  him  at  church  on  Sundays;  you  must  pass  his 
house  every  day.  Maybe  you  are  both  employed  by 
the  same  farmer,  and  then  you  must  share  the  same 
room,  the  same  bed.  The  weather  is  too  cold  to  go  out 
and  get  away  from  him.  Our  people  have  no  love  for 
the  open  air  as  such.  And  in  your  only  place  of  amuse- 
ment, the  inn,  you  must  sit  cheek- by- jowl  with  him  too. 
Until — until,  some  night,  when  you  have  had  more  than 
your  share  of  schnaps, — you  wait  for  him  outside  the 
door  of  the  inn,  step  up  to  him  as  he  comes  out,  and 
— stab  him — here, — deep  down  between  the  collar-bone 
and  the  first  rib. — The  witches'  cauldron  has  boiled  over. 
And  then  you  remember  that  you  used  to  spin  tops  with 
him,  or  hunt  eggs,  as  boys  together.  And  you  drop  on 
your  knees  beside  him  and  say,  'Hans, — Hans — nichts 
fur  unguat.  I  didn't  mean  to.'  And  they  don't  mean 
to,  my  friend.  That's  the  shame  of  it;  the  tragedy. — 
It's  the  same  way  with  love  and  lust.  Here  you  live, 
packed  close  together  with  others,  all  winter  long,  eat- 
ing too  much,  with  no  proper  exercise ;  smoking  too  much 
bad  tobacco;  drinking,  often  on  credit,  too  much  bad 
spirits.  And  gradually  your  outlook  on  life  narrows 
and  narrows  down,  until  it  holds  only  one  person:  if 
you  are  lucky,  an  unpromised  maiden, — if  you  aren't, 


104      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

another  man's  wife.  Or, — alas  that  it  should  be  so, — 
one  of  your  own  blood.  You  can  imagine  the  end.  The 
kettle  boils  over.  Sometimes  with  blood.  Sometimes 
with  water:  with  the  water  of  Thiersee  that's  deep 
enough  to  drown, — quite  deep  enough.  And  you  stand 
on  the  bank  wringing  your  hands.  'I  never  meant  to 
hurt  her, — never. ' God  help  us  all. — God  help  us  all. ' ' 

"You  are  too  hard  on  the  men,"  protested  Edwards. 
"Have  your  women  no  share  in  the  boiling  over  of  your 
cauldron  ? ' ' 

"No  share!  Why,  without  them  the  kettle  would  not 
boil  at  all.  They  are  the  slow  fire  that  keep  it  a-bub- 

ble. But  I  am  talking  you  deaf  and  blind. — You 

will  be  Pilate  then?" 

The  priest  drew  the  list  of  actors  towards  him  again. 

* '  That  is  a  load  off  my  mind.  I  'm  thinking  of  letting 
Eosine  have  Mary  Magdalene.  She  has  several  good 
scenes;  not  to  be  found  in  the  canonical  Scriptures,  by 
the  way.  The  Bin-germeister  will  do  the  High  Priest. 
Annas  and  Caiaphas  rolled  into  one.  We  have  to  econ- 
omize, you  see,  with  so  few  people  to  draw  from.  I 
can't  give  Pilate  more  than  three  soldiers." 

"But  the  costumes?     Roman  armor,  and  all  that?" 

The  priest  chuckled  delightedly. 

"I'm  afraid  your  thoughts  are  still  in  Oberammergau. 
We  at  Thiersee  follow  the  example  of  the  great  artists 
who  painted  biblical  scenes  in  the  costumes  of  their  own 
time.  Your  Koman  bodyguard  will  be  three  of  our 
young  fellows,  who  are  still  doing  their  military  service, 
and  who'll  be  at  home  on  furlough  in  the  uniform  of  an 
Austrian  infantry  regiment.  You  haven't  grasped  the 
spirit  of  the  thing  yet. ' ' 

"And  the  two  chief  roles f" 

"Your  Hausmeisterin,  Frau  Speckbacher,  for  Mary. 
We  can't  allow  ourselves  the  sentimentality  of  having 
an  unmarried  woman.  Besides,  in  our  religion,  we  don 't 
talk  so  much  as  you  English  do  about  the  'Blessed 
Virgin.'  We  speak  of  the  'Mother  of  God.'  And  a 
woman  who  isn't  a  mother — what  can  she  know  of  '  Cuius 
animam  gementem  pertransivit  gladius'?  Kassian,  with 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      105 

his  big  beard,  will  be  St.  Peter.  Franzl,  St.  John.  "We 
only  show  a  few  of  the  Twelve  Disciples.  As  for  Nani, 
who 's  keen  on  the  Magdalene,  I  'm  thinking  of  letting  her 
do  the  leader  of  the  chorus.  I  haven 't  any  older  boy  just 
now  who 's  up  to  memorizing  the  lines.  Franzl  did  it  last 
time." 

A  timid  knock  interrupted  them. 

The  priest  looked  up  and  paused.  The  knock  came 
again,  still  softer,  more  hesitating. 

"That's  he,"  nodded  the  priest.  "I  thought  it  would 
be.  Our  Christus. ' ' 

Then,  raising  his  voice,  he  bade  the  new-comer  enter. 

Edwards'  first  glimpse  of  the  man  never  ceased  to 
haunt  him.  Against  the  background  of  the  star-strewn 
sky  he  saw  the  outline  of  a  bare  head  with  long  lank 
hair,  of  broad  shoulders  bowed  wearily  and  wrapped  in  a 
thin  cloak.  The  face  was  in  the  shadow,  but  the  figure, 
its  pose  and  atmosphere,  suggested  intense  weariness 
and  discouragement, — not  a  weariness  of  the  body  that 
even  in  the  dark  loomed  up  strong  enough, — but  a  weari- 
ness,— a  burden  of  the  soul. 

"Griiss  Gott,  Herr  Lehrer,"  said  the  priest,  motion- 
ing the  young  man  to  a  place  at  the  table.  "Come  and 
sit  down.  Herr  Doktor,  this  is  our  schoolmaster:  your 
fellow-lodger  in  the  schoolhouse :  just  back  from  his  holi- 
days." 

Then,  as  the  other  hesitated,  he  added  in  a  sharper 
authoritative  tone — 

"Don't  stand  there  like  that.  Here's  supper.  And 
I  '11  wager  you  've  eaten  nothing.  Aren  't  you  feeling  any 
better  ?  I  'd  expected  to  see  you  quite  another  man. ' ' 

The  schoolmaster,  Herr  Emil  Joneke,  slowly  laid  his 
cloak  aside,  and  as  slowly  moved  to  the  table,  extending 
to  Edwards  a  hand  that  pressed  his  in  a  nervous  spas- 
modic grasp,  and  then  hung  limp  in  his  encircling  fingers. 
In  all  his  movements,  in  all  his  speech,  there  was  a  slow- 
ness; not  the  slowness  that  comes  from  a  natural  lack 
of  quick  mental  or  physical  reaction,  but  the  slowness 
that  is  only  explainable  by  the  presence  of  some  inner 
impediment  which  makes  of  all  motion,  of  all  speech,  an 


106      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

effort  and  a  difficult  overcoming  of  some  invisible 
obstacle.  He  had  the  typical  square  jaw,  low  chin,  and 
large  mouth  of  Tyrolese  peasant-stock,  covered  by  a 
growth  of  soft  brown  beard  that  hid  none  of  the  out- 
lines of  his  face.  It  was  scarcely  a  beard  at  all,  more 
like  a  deepening  of  the  shadow  in  which  his  whole  face 
seemed  to  lie.  As  a  type  he  was  ordinary  enough.  To 
Edwards,  however,  it  seemed  as  if  the  pupils  of  his  deep 
brown  eyes  were  abnormally  wide. 

He  sat  down  at  the  priest 's  left  and  began  to  eat. 

"Did  you  hear  what  I  said?"  demanded  Father 
Mathias  after  a  pause.  "Aren't  you  better?  You  can 
speak  freely  before  the  Herr  Doktor,  you  know. ' ' 

"Better!"  reechoed  the  schoolmaster.  "Why  better? 
"What  have  I  done  to  deserve  to  be  better,  Hochwiirden  ? ' ' 

"Now  really,"  protested  the  priest.  "If  you've  come 
back  to  begin  your  old  '  I  'm-only-an-un worthy- worm-in- 
the-dust'  game,  I  give  you  up.  Rouse  yourself,  man. 
We  're  expecting  great  things  of  you  in  the  Play. ' ' 

The  other's  face  showed  a  momentary  flash  of  inter- 
est. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  forming  every  word  as  if  with  an 
effort.  "Yes-s.  I  went — to  the  theater — three  times — 
when  I  was — in — Innsbruck. ' ' 

"And  you  had  some  sort  of  adventures,  I  hope.  Some- 
thing to  get  you  out  of  yourself,  eh  ? " 

Then,  as  the  young  man  only  stared,  his  lips  moving 
silently,  the  priest  brought  his  pudgy  fist  down  on  the 
table  with  a  thump  that  made  the  glasses  ring. 

' '  Himmel  -  Kreutz -  Donnerwetter  -  Sakrament  nochein  - 
mal ! "  he  shouted.  ' '  Oh,  damn — damn — damn ! ' ' 

"I — I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  the  schoolmaster  crisply. 
For  the  moment  he  seemed  quite  shaken  out  of  his  moody 
silence. 

The  priest  turned  to  Edwards,  who  was  gasping  with 
astonishment.  He  grinned. 

"Didn't  know  I  could  swear  in  English,  did  you? 
Well,  I  can  when  the  occasion  demands  it.  And  no- 
body here  understands  what  I'm  saying  anyhow." 

The  Herr  Lehrer  hung  his  head.    But  he  seemed  freer, 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      107 

as  if  the  inner  obstacles  to  speech  had  been  cleared 
away. 

"How  should  a  man  like  me  have  adventures?"  he 
said.  ' '  Why,  the  most  brazen  woman,  swinging  a  wrist- 
bag  at  a  street  corner,  wouldn't  have  courage  enough 
even  to  whisper  as  I  went  by.  Or  if  she  did  I  shouldn  't 
hear  her.  Couldn't,  I  daresay." 

"I  won't  let  you  talk  like  that,  Joncke.  You'd  better 
go  home.  Take  the  Herr  Doktor  with  you. — And,  Herr 
Doktor,  when  he  gets  into  one  of  these  deaf-and-dumb 
fits,  just  throw  a  book  at  him  or  swear  horrid.  That 
wakes  him  up  for  a  minute  or  two. ' ' 

The  schoolmaster,  who  had  scarcely  touched  the  food 
before  him,  caught  up  his  cloak  and  stood  waiting  at 
the  bottom  of  the  "Widum"  steps.  The  priest  drew 
Edwards  back  into  the  house  for  a  moment. 

"I  expect  you  to  be  good  to  that  child,"  he  whis- 
pered. "For  he's  scarcely  a  man  yet.  Not  much  over 
twenty.  But  that's  the  way  we  do  things  here.  We 
take  the  son  of  a  peasant  or  a  small  village  tradesman, 
and  send  him  off  among  utter  strangers  to  Innsbruck  to 
make  a  teacher  of  him.  The  making  takes  five  years. 
For  the  first  two  he  almost  dies  of  home-sickness  for  the 
land, — for  his  own  kind.  During  the  last  three  he  gets 
used  to  city  life.  He  has  his  small  amusements,  which 
to  him  are  of  vast  importance.  You  and  I  couldn't  sit 
out  a  single  performance  in  the  Innsbruck  Theater, — so 
wretched  is  it.  But  to  boys  like  this  it  is  the  glory  of  all 
things  desirable.  That  and  the  cinematographs,  their 
dances  and  petty  flirtations.  And  then, — then  when 
they've  taken  firm  root  in  the  city  we  examine  them; 
find  them  sufficiently  stuffed  with  a  lot  of  preposterously 
uninteresting  facts,  and  pack  them  off  miles  away  from 
the  town  to  some  lonely  valley  like  this,  where  they  eat 
out  their  hearts.  They've  lost  all  touch  with  the  soil; 
they  've  forgotten  that  they  too  were  once  shoeless  peasant 
children,  and  they  can't  find  their  footing  among  the  very 
people  from  which  they  sprang.  And,  my  friend, — most 
of  them  are  all  alone.  Of  course,  after  the  priest  the 
schoolmaster  is  the  most  respected  person  in  the  village — 


108      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

theoretically.  But  unless  he  exerts  himself  he  is  made 
the  priest's  servant  and  the  people's  laughing-stock. 
And  that  hurts.  Especially  when  five  years  in  Inns- 
bruck— think  of  it — in  Innsbruck — have  given  him  the 
conviction  that  he  is  a  torch-bearer  of  culture  into  un- 
couth communities.  Like  ours.  So  look  after  this  young 
man,  will  you?  As  you  say  in  English:  'It  is  your 
bounden  duty  and  service.'  Oh  yes, — damn  it  all, — 
it  is." 

He  walked  down  the  steps  with  Edwards,  where  they 
rejoined  the  waiting  schoolmaster. 

''What  a  glorious  night!"  Edwards  said. 

The  air  had  the  crisp  clearness  of  winter,  but  the  sky 
was  a  soft  blue,  and  the  wind  was  warm.  In  the  long 
strip  of  sky  between  the  two  converging  lines  of  snow- 
capped peaks  the  stars  seemed  marvelously  many. 

"Look  at  that,"  cried  the  priest,  his  short  arms  lifted 
towards  the  sparkling  firmament.  "Do  you  know  any- 
thing about  astronomy,  Herr  Doktor?  No?  Well,  you 
ought  to  take  it  up  as  an  antidote  to  your  omniscient 
over-scientific  science.  It's  my  antidote  to  dogma. 
Now,  if  poor  Holtzmann  had  only  known  a  little  astron- 
omy he  wouldn't  have  broken  his  heart  over  a  few  extra 
unexpected  babies.  Why,  when  such  things  as  that 
trouble  me,  I  meditate — not  on  the  consuming  fire  of 
God's  absolute  chastity,  but — on  the  distance  from  the 
earth  to  the  nearest  fixed  star.  The  nearest.  And  my 
meditation  tells  me  that  either  no  God  exists  at  all  up 
there  through  all  that  space,  or  else  that  He  is  an  all- 
pervading  Spirit  as  immense  as  the  universe  itself.  And 

then — don't  you  see "  He  slipped  a  hand  through 

the  arm  of  each  of  his  companions, "then  it  can't 

make  any  difference  to  Him  what  I  or  you  do  with  this 
infmitesimally  insignificant  conglomeration  of  tiny  cells 
that  we  call  our  body.  Now  can  it  ? " 

"But,  Hochwiirden,"  interposed  the  schoolmaster  un- 
easily, ' '  sin  is  a  reality.  It  exists  in  the  spiritual  sphere. 
It " 

"Ach,  was!  Just  because  you're  going  to  do  the 
Christus  in  our  play,  you  need  not  be  resisting  the  devil 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      109 

all  the  time.  Sin!  I  don't  like  that  word.  It  has  a 
nasty  smell.  You  ask  ninety-nine  Christians  out  of  a 
hundred  what  they  mean  by  it,  and  they  '11  tell  you  some- 
thing or  things  that  have  to  do  with  the  indubitable  fact 
that  the  world  is  made  up  of  men  and  women.  Things 
that  the  foolish  people  who  write  prayer-books  put  all 
together  under  the  Sixth  or  the  Seventh  Commandment 
of  a  mythical  Jewish  lawgiver.  Bodily,  material, — often 
beastly,  things.  Oh,  I  grant  you,  there  is  sin,  rebellion, 
in  the  spiritual  sphere.  And  for  that,  I  can  imagine  a 
God  who  is  a  Spirit  taking  thought.  Punishing  it  per- 
haps. Or  better,  treating  it  as  a  mistake  to  be  rectified, 
as  a  fault  in  His  own  material.  But  that  He,  the  All- 
Mighty,  whose  being  spans  these  millions  and  millions  of 
miles  up  there,  that  He  should  worry  over  what  I  do 
with  this  minute  clump  of  organic  substance,  with  this — 
say  with  this  finger  of  mine, — why,  it  isn't  thinkable. 
If  He  does  care  about  it,  if  it  does  distress  Him,  I  am 
sorry  for  Him.  If  He  intends  to  punish  me  for  it,  then 
— then  I  had  rather  serve  the  fallen  Lucifer.  He  were  a 
greater-hearted  gentleman.  But  I  mustn't  keep  you 
gossiping  here.  Good-night  to  you  both.  And  take  my 
advice  about  the  stars.  Have  a  jaunt  among  the  con- 
stellations now  and  then." 

He  stumped  up  the  steps,  and  his  short  misshapen 
bulk  disappeared  in  the  shadow. 

Edwards,  as  he  started  on  his  walk  home  at  Joncke's 
side,  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  heavens,  unwilling  to 
break  the  all-pervading  sense  of  quiet.  But  he  soon  felt 
that  his  companion  was  misconstruing  his  silence,  so  he 
forced  himself  to  say  something. 

' '  We  're  fortunate  in  having  such  a  shepherd  of  souls, ' ' 
he  began  with  an  uneasy  laugh.  ' '  But  I  wonder  what  his 
bishop  would  say. ' ' 

"Oh,  he  doesn't  talk  like  that  to  his  bishop,"  Joncke 
answered.  He  had  pulled  his  hat  down  over  his  face  and 
stared  at  the  dark  road  before  him.  "Besides,  nobody 
would  mind  what  he  did.  He's  a  genius." 

' '  He  must  have  had  an  unusual  life. ' ' 

The  moment  he  had  spoken  Edwards  was  sorry.    Who 


110      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

was  he  to  pry  into  the  past  of  other  men  ?  Fortunately, 
the  schoolmaster  ignored  the  implied  question.  For  sev- 
eral moments  he  walked  on  in  silence  at  Edwards'  side. 
Then,  realizing  that  they  were  drawing  near  the  school- 
house,  he  began  to  speak  as  if  it  cost  him  an  immense 
effort  to  force  each  word  between  his  teeth. 

"You  haven't  read  the  text  of  our  Play  yet,  have 
you?  When  you  have,  I  hope  you'll  let  me  talk  to  you 
about — about  my  role.  There  isn't  anybody  else  here  to 
play  it,  you  know,  except  me.  Or  rather,  it  would  make 
the  others  jealous  to  give  it  to  anyone  of  the  people  them- 
selves. I  didn't  want  to  do  it  at  first.  But  lately  I've 
sort  of  grown  into  the  part.  You  see,  I  know  something 
of  what  it  means  to  be  much  alone — as  He  was — '  segrega- 
tus  a  populo.'  To  go  through  life,  as  He  did,  with  the 
shadow  of  the  Cross  falling  about  Him  always,  seeing  it 
coming  nearer  every  day,  knowing  that  He  must  go 
through  with  it,  that  it  was  unavoidable,  foreordained. ' ' 

"Come,  Herr  Lehrer,  that's  not  normal,"  interposed 
Edwards,  his  whole  being  up  in  arms  against  his  compan- 
ion and  his  depression.  It  was  seldom  that  he  took  an 
instant  dislike  to  anyone ;  but  this  schoolmaster  repelled 
him,  this  young  peasant's  son  with  his  thin  veneer  of 
culture  who  reveled  in  these  degenerate  moods  of  "Welt- 
Schmerz"  and  self-abnegation.  A  man  who  delighted  in 
tormenting  himself.  Edwards  had  supposed  that  such 
types  were  the  exclusive  products  of  certain  Slavonic 
countries:  because  of  them  he  had  never  been  able  to 
finish  a  single  book  of  Dostojewskij. 

Something  of  this  instinctive  repugnance  must  have 
made  itself  felt  in  his  voice.  For  the  schoolmaster  looked 
up  suddenly,  and  started  to  speak  again. 

"I  know  I'm  not  normal.  Not  that  I  care.  Who 
would  want  to  be  exactly  like  everybody  else?  But  I 
can't  help  it,  can  I?  It  isn 't  that  I  don 't  try.  Though 
you  might  not  think  it,  I  'm  quite  a  decent  teacher.  But 
this  depression  comes  over  me  sometimes.  Oh,  I'm  sound 
enough  in  body;  strong  as  an  ox.  Perhaps  it  was  the 
long  lonely  evenings  last  winter  when  I  got  worrying 
about  my  part  in  the  Play.  Do  you  know, ' '  he  added  in 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      111 

an  excited  voice,  ' '  I  think  that  I  must  have  been  alive  at 
the  time  of  Christ.  I  can  visualize  it  all  so  plainly.  So 
many  of  the  people  in  the  Gospels  seem  familiar,  as  if  I  'd 
seen  them  somewhere  before.  As  if  I'd  been  among  the 
crowd  that  stood  under  the  Cross.  I've  often  imagined 
that — you  won't  laugh — that  I  might  have  been  St. 
John.  Because  whenever  I  read  those  lonely  words — 
you  know  where  the  Lord  cries  out '  Eli,  Eli,  lama  sabach- 
thani  ? ' — it 's  as  if  I  'd  really  heard  them  once.  And  then 
a  great  darkness  comes  over  me.  'Why  hast  thou  for- 
saken me  ? ' — I  know  what  it  is  to  feel  like  that ;  forsaken, 
— lost, — utterly  cast  out." 

''Now  see  here,"  protested  Edwards,  embarrassed  by 
this  outburst,  "you've  got  to  get  into  other  lines  of 
thought,  or  you  '11  be  no  use  at  your  work.  School  begins 
to-morrow,  doesn  't  it  ?  That  '11  take  you  out  of  yourself. 
You  aren  't  lost  or  forsaken. ' ' 

"But  I  am,"  the  other  insisted,  yet  in  a  lighter  tone, 
as  if  hopefully  challenging  contradiction.  ' '  He — He  was 
forsaken  too.  But  He  had  twelve  friends,  even  if  one  of 
them  did  betray  Him.  Twelve  friends !  And  I  've  not  got 
one,  not  a  single  one." 

Somehow  this  cry  of  despair  rang  false.  There  was 
a  tone  of  the  theatrical  about  it,  as  if  the  man  who  ut- 
tered it  were  unconsciously  playing  a  part,  and,  in  some 
mysterious  way,  enjoying  it.  It  was  the  meaning  of 
this  tone,  not  clearly  apprehended,  and  quite  misunder- 
stood, that  led  Edwards  astray.  For  it  strengthened  him 
in  his  antipathy  to  this  new  acquaintance,  and  deepened 
his  certainty  that  the  schoolmaster  was  a  man  of  moods, 
whose  "vapors"  it  was  his  duty,  as  his  companion  and 
physician,  to  bear  with  and  to  dispel. 

"Don't  let's  have  any  more  of  this,"  he  said.  They 
had  reached  the  schoolhouse  and  were  climbing  the  dark 
stairs  to  their  rooms  on  the  second  floor.  Edwards 
opened  his  door,  then  turned  on  the  threshold  to  the 
schoolmaster,  who  had  started  towards  his  own  quarters 
across  the  hall- way. 

"You've  got  plenty  of  friends  here,  and  you  know 
it.  The  children  like  you,  I'm  told.  Our  good  Hoch- 


112      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

wiirden  respects  you.  And  now  I'm  here,  am  I  not? 
You  know  the  way  to  my  room.  Come  in  whenever  you 
like.  If  I  'm  busy  1 11  say  so,  and  you  can  sit  down  and 
amuse  yourself  until  I  'm  at  liberty. ' ' 

Then,  angry  at  himself  for  his  unreasoning  dislike  of 
this  young  man,  and  anxious  to  make  amends  to  his 
own  conscience,  he  added — 

"They  bring  me  a  cold  supper  every  night  at  seven 
except  on  Sundays,  when  we  both  eat  at  the  'Widum.' 
Why  won 't  you  share  my  week-day  meal  ?  Or  have  your 
own  served  at  my  table?  You  needn't  feel  bound  to 
babble  to  me,  you  know.  Bring  a  book  and  read  if  you 
like.  I'll  do  the  same.  There's  no  earthly  reason  why 
you  should  ever  feel  alone  in  this  house  any  more." 

The  schoolmaster  stepped  quickly  across  the  hall. 

"Be  kind  to  me,"  he  stammered.  And  his  hot  hands 
clung  to  Edwards'  arm  like  the  grasp  of  a  drowning  man. 
"Oh,  be  a  little  kind  to  me  for  the  love  of  God." 


CHAPTER  X 

EDWARDS  was  wakened  early  by  the  sound  of  stamping 
feet  and  shrill  reechoing  voices. 

School  had  begun. 

While  he  dressed,  he  went  to  the  window  from  time 
to  time  to  watch  the  gradual  arrival  of  the  children. 
This  part  of  Thiersee's  population  had  seldom  come  un- 
der his  notice  before.  Now  and  then  one  of  the  younger 
ones  had  found  his  or  her  way  into  his  waiting-room 
to  have  an  aching  tooth  tugged  out.  But  such  patients 
had  been  rare.  Now  for  the  first  time  he  saw  them  all 
together. 

They  were  quiet  children.  They  did  not  romp  and 
run  and  shout  in  an  excess  of  animal  spirits,  but  sat 
about  on  the  steps  or  stood  in  small  groups,  boys  freely 
mingled  with. girls.  One  of  the  older  girls  looked  up, 
saw  him  at  the  window,  and  then  caps  came  off  and 
hands  were  waved  in  greeting. 

"Grass  Gott,  Herr  Doktor." 

The  voices  reached  him  as  an  indistinct  wave  of  sound ; 
he  was  conscious,  nevertheless,  that  they  were  harsh  and 
throaty ;  not  beautiful  voices  in  any  sense. 

The  children  were  still  there  when  he  went  again  to 
the  window,  his  coffee-cup  in  one  hand,  a  large  sweet  bun 
in  the  other.  This  time,  when  they  saw  him,  they  only 
stared  at  what  he  held. 

"Heavens,"  he  thought,  "they're  hungry.  That's 
why  they  don't  race  about  like  other  children." 

' '  Catch, ' '  he  shouted ;  tore  his  bun  in  three  pieces,  and 
tossed  it  down. 

That  was  a  mistake.  In  an  instant  the  quiet  of  the 
morning  was  shattered  into  a  thousand  fragments.  At 
least  a  dozen  violent  fights  began  on  the  spot.  And  Ed- 
wards was  on  the  point  of  retreating,  aghast  at  the  storm 

113 


114      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

of  passion  he  had  loosed,  when  he  noticed,  as  his  custom 
was,  not  the  victors  in  the  struggle  that  was  going  on 
under  his  window,  but  the  vanquished. 

And  he  saw  that  most  of  them  were  lame.  Some  more, 
some  less ;  but  they  all  limped. 

He  hurried  downstairs,  and  found  Joncke,  watch  in 
one  hand,  a  large  bell  in  the  other,  standing  in  the  empty 
hall.  He  had  dreaded  this  meeting  after  what  had  hap- 
pened last  night;  but  now  his  interest  in  the  children 
swept  all  other  thoughts  away.  Besides,  this  was  a  dif- 
ferent Joncke:  a  straight-shouldered,  composed,  square- 
jawed  embodiment  of  authority,  self -sufficient,  and 
strong. 

"Of  course  they've  had  no  breakfast,"  he  said,  in  an- 
swer to  Edwards'  excited  question.  "But  that's  nothing 
unusual.  Very  few  of  our  children  ever  eat  before  mid- 
day. I  never  did.  When  I  was  in  Innsbruck  at  the 
'  Paedagogium, '  I  had  to  go  not  only  without  breakfast, 
but  without  supper  too.  I  had  one  meal  a-day,  mostly 
at  some  charitable  convent.  And  not  always  that.  We 
all  eat  too  much. ' ' 

"But  they  've  walked  a  long  way ;  many  of  them  miles, ' ' 
interrupted  Edwards.  "No  wonder  they  don't  play  and 
shout." 

"Thank  heaven,  they  don't.  Remember,  Herr  Dok- 
tor,  I  have  some  sixty  children  of  all  ages,  divided  into 
four  classes,  all  in  one  room;  and  I  must  teach  them 
alone,  without  assistance  from  anyone.  Do  you  suppose 
I'd  be  able  to  do  anything,  if  they  arrived  well-fed,  and 
as  fresh  as  when  they  stepped  out  of  bed?  Empty 
Stomachs  and  Tired  Legs  are  the  two  gentlemen  who 
help  me  to  keep  order. ' ' 

' '  But  not  Lame  Legs  surely. ' ' 

The  schoolmaster's  face  clouded. 

"No.  That's  appalling,  isn't  it?  You'll  see  lots  of 
limping  among  the  children.  But  you  won 't  have  noticed 
many  limping  adults.  Lame  children  die.  It  isn't  only 
their  hip- joints  either.  Look  at  that  one." 

He  pointed  to  a  girl  of  ten,  whose  narrow  little  chest 
was  shaken  with  a  spasm  of  coughing.  As  the  spasm 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      115 

passed,  she  put  her  hand  to  her  mouth.  Instantly  the 
schoolmaster  was  beside  her,  and  had  wiped  her  lips  with 
his  own  handkerchief. 

"You  see,"  he  added  to  Edwards,  "that's  the  danger. 
But  I  can't  make  them  use  handkerchiefs  when  they've 
never  possessed  such  luxuries.  And  the  Biirgermeister 
won't  give  me  money  for  places  where  they — where  they 
might  spit — without  harm  to  others.  This  schoolhouse  is 
soaked  with  the  poison.  It  ought  to  be  blown  up  with 
dynamite.  But  the  Village  Council  make  fun  of  me. 
There's  no  money  for  a  new  schoolhouse  anyway.  So 
there  you  have  it.  Stiffened  hips  and  knees.  Elbows 
too.  Abscesses  that  seem  to  go  deep  down  into  the  bone  it- 
self. Lungs,  or  what's  left  of  them.  And  then  the  cases 
of  meningitis.  I  think  they're  the  most  terrible  of  all. 
I  don't  know  much  about  medicine,  Herr  Doktor.  But 
at  the  '  Pasdagogium '  we  had  to  take  a  course  in  School 
Hygiene.  So  I  can't  help  realizing  what  it  is." 

"Tuberculosis." 

' '  I  don 't  use  the  word.  I  'm  more  afraid  of  the  name 
than  of  the  thing.  All  non-medical  men  are,  I  sup- 
pose.   Excuse  me.  I  must  ring  the  bell." 

Edwards  stood  by  the  door  as  the  children  trooped 
past. 

Joncke  had  been  right.  It  was  appalling.  Not  what 
met  the  eye,  but  what  one  was  forced  to  deduce.  Ed- 
wards ran  over  in  his  mind  all  the  forms  of  Tuberculosis 
that  he  could  remember. 

Cold  Abscesses.  There  was  one  low  down  on  that  girl 's 
neck. 

Coxitis, — Gonitis.  Plenty  of  them  limping  along. 
Some  with  the  limp  only  just  beginning,  and  curable  now 
if  taken  in  time. 

Phthisis,  too,  written  large  on  the  faces  of  those  two 
small  boys.  Perhaps  a  chance  of  a  cure  here  also,  if — 
if 

But  that  "if"  meant,  in  one  case,  a  long  costly  treat- 
ment with  extension  bandages ;  in  the  other  many  months, 
perhaps  years,  in  some  clearer,  higher  air,  with  unlimited 
Kin-baths  and  proper  food. 


116      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

And  where  were  they  to  come  from,  all  these  things  ? 

If  he  only  had  a  tiny  cottage — such  a  humble  little 
place — with  room  for  twenty  patients,  high  up  on  some 
spur  of  rock  above  the  valley,  where  the  sun  was  strong ! 
It  wouldn't  cost  much;  a  mere  nothing.  And  there  he 
could  give  these  children  a  chance  of  life, — a  chance 

He  laughed  at  himself.  "Where  was  one  to  find  the 
money  in  a  poor  community,  that  had  not  even  enough 
to  provide  the  empested  schoolhouse  with  what  Joncke 
called  "proper  places  to  spit"? 

From  the  schoolroom  came  the  sounds  of  a  violin. 
Joncke  was  beginning  the  day  according  to  rule,  with  the 
music  lesson.  On  his  cheap  shrill-toned  instrument  he 
played  a  melody.  Then  the  children's  voices  took  it  up. 

The  voices  drove  Edwards  out  of  the  house. 

There  was  nothing  fresh  or  childlike  about  them.  They 
were  so  harsh,  so  guttural,  produced  with  such  effort  and 
with  such  falseness  of  pitch,  that  he  fled.  And  memories 
pursued  him :  memories  of  afternoons  in  the  dim  chapel  of 
Trinity  College  at  Cambridge,  where  the  soft  cross-lights 
mingled  with  the  still  softer  sounds  of  boys'  voices  sing- 
ing "The  Radiant  Morn."  He  felt  like  an  outcast 
mariner  shipwrecked  among  some  strange  and  bar- 
barous people. 

He  sought  help  where  he  had  so  often  found  it, — 
high  above  the  village  under  that  great  pine-tree,  round 
which  the  cows  grazed  all  day  long.  It  was  early  yet — 
scarcely  eight  o'clock;  but  he  knew  that  he  should  find 
Nani  there. 

As  he  reached  the  bend  of  the  road  that  edged  the 
meadow,  he  whistled  a  few  bars  of  the  old  song  that  young 
lads  sings  when  they  pass  the  girls'  closed  windows,  on 
their  way  home  from  the  inn  of  a  summer's  night.  The 
habit  had  grown  on  him  of  thus  announcing  his  approach. 
Usually  his  call  was  answered  either  by  Franzl  or  by 
Nani  herself. 

To-day  no  answer  came.  His  heart  sank.  Perhaps 
they  had  wandered  off  into  the  woods  together.  "What 
should  he  do  ?  Where  should  he  go  ? 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      117 

He  hurried  across  the  field.  The  old  tree  had  a  thick 
girth ;  he  peered  around  it. 

And  there  they  sat  with  their  backs  against  it,  Franzl 
with  his  arm  round  Nani,  who  was  knitting  quietly,  her 
hands  in  her  lap. 

At  the  sound  of  his  voice,  Franzl  started  up.  The  start 
was  overdone.  If  Edwards  had  been  less  preoccupied  he 
must  have  realized  that  they  had  heard  his  whistle,  and 
had  purposely  not  answered  it.  Nor  did  he  mark  the 
sense  of  restraint  that  made  his  two  friends  seem  stiff 
and  unnatural.  He  was  fleeing  from  himself ;  for  others 
than  himself  he  had  no  thought.  And  he  did  not  ask 
of  these  two  that  they  should  amuse  him  with  pretty 
speeches;  he  only  wanted  the  peacefulness  of  their  pres- 
ence. So  he  sat  down  near  them,  resting  his  head  against 
the  tree-trunk,  and  gazing  out  across  the  meadow,  dotted 
here  and  there  with  the  yellow  daffodils.  Nothing  broke 
the  silence  except  the  faint  click-click  of  Nani 's  knitting- 
needles. 

Half  an  hour  passed.  Edwards  knew  that  his  patients 
would  be  waiting  for  him  at  the  schoolhouse,  but  the 
thought  of  returning  to  the  dreary  building  with  "the 
enemy"  lurking  in  every  corner,  was  intolerable.  He 
wished  he  had  brought  a  book,  that  he  might  spend  the 
morning  here  with  Nani,  for  Franzl  must  soon  be  off  to 
his  own  work.  He  wondered  why  the  young  fellow  had 
already  stayed  so  long. 

' '  You  '11  pass  the  school  on  your  way  back,  won 't  you  ? ' ' 
he  said  abruptly,  as  Franzl  made  no  attempt  to  stir  from 
his  place  at  Nani's  side.  "So  just  run  in  and  ask  Frau 
Speckbacher  to  see  if  any  patients  are  waiting  in  the 
hall.  If  there  are,  she 's  to  tell  them  that  they  must  come 
to-morrow.  I've  got  a  bad  headache  to-day,  and  I  need 
a  rest.  You  'd  better  start  along  now. ' ' 

At  his  best,  Franzl  was  never  much  given  to  speech. 
And  now  his  silence  was  eloquent  of  discomfort  and  of 
a  beginning  distrust.  Not  that  he  hesitated  to  obey. 
People  generally  did  what  Edwards  asked  them  to  do. 

He  heaved  himself  up  on  his  feet,  and  stood  for  a 


118      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

moment  looking  down  at  Nani.  She  smiled  at  him  and 
nodded. 

"Run  along.  I'll  look  after  the  Herr  Doktor.  And 
you  can  come  for  me  this  afternoon  when  you  've  finished 
your  plowing." 

Franzl  stamped  off  across  the  field,  blowing  clouds 
of  velvety  smoke  from  his  rumbling  pipe.  He  waved 
his  hand  as  he  disappeared  into  the  woods  that  bordered 
the  meadow.  Then,  before  stepping  out  into  the  road,  he 
stopped  short.  On  a  stone  by  the  roadside  a  red-headed 
lad  was  sitting,  a  battered  school  knapsack  flung  across 
his  knees,  his  freckled  face  upturned,  and  one  ear  lifted 
to  catch  the  notes  of  a  blackbird  that  was  singing  on  a 
branch  near  by. 

' '  Hi,  you,  Toni !     Skippin '  school  ? ' ' 

At  the  sound  of  the  voice  behind  him,  the  boy  jumped 
up.  Then  his  lips  parted  in  a  welcoming  smile  as  he 
recognized  the  speaker. 

"No,  I  ain't,"  he  answered,  getting  to  his  feet  and 
slinging  the  knapsack  over  his  shoulder.  ' '  Only  mother 
kept  me  late.  I'll  bet  she  did  it  on  purpose.  And  you 
know  how  far  away  we  live.  Seems  further  to  me  every 
year.  And  my  leg — this  one — gets  terrible  tired.  Griiss 
Gott." 

' '  Hold  on, ' '  interrupted  Franzl.  ' '  I  want  you  to  take 
a  message.  "When  you  get  to  school,  find  Nani 's  mother, 
and  tell  her  that  the  Herr  Doktor  won't  be  home  this 
morning.  He's  out  in  the  field  with  Nani.  The  sick 
people '11  have  to  wait." 

Franzl  looked  after  the  boy,  as  he  started  on  again 
down  the  hill,  and  noticed  that  he  limped  slightly.  Then 
he  refilled  his  pipe  and  sat  down  near  the  edge  of  the 
wood,  where,  unseen,  he  could  overlook  the  sunny 
meadow.  If  the  sick  people  could  wait,  so  could  his  plow- 
ing. 

Edwards,  meanwhile,  had  taken  Franzl's  place  at 
Nani's  side.  He  looked  down  at  the  masses  of  her  soft 
brown  hair,  clustering  about  her  shapely  neck;  at  her 
strong  yet  graceful  arms  and  clever  busy  hands;  at  the 
outlines  of  her  body,  suggested  here,  and  revealed  there, 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      119 

beneath  the  loose  clinging  stuff  of  her  gown.  Minute 
after  minute  slipped  away,  yet  he  did  not  move. 

At  last,  she  put  her  knitting  aside  and  rose. 

All  her  movements  were  so  quiet,  so  harmonious :  there 
was  no  haste  about  them,  no  rough  corners  of  half-com- 
pleted gesture  to  catch  the  eye  and  weary  it. 

' '  Now  that  the  Herr  Doktor  has  rested, ' '  she  said,  ' '  I 
will  take  his  headache  away. ' ' 

She  moved  off,  and  Edwards,  letting  his  head  fall  back 
against  the  tree,  closed  his  eyes. 

Soon  he  was  conscious  of  soft  warm  hands,  that  slowly, 
gently  unfastened  his  shirt,  removed  collar  and  cravat, 
so  that  neck  and  breast  lay  free.  Then  came  the  touch  of 
cool  spring  water,  and  of  still  cooler  leaves,  laid  one  by 
one  on  his  breast  and  about  his  neck,  until  he  was  swathed 
to  the  chin  in  refreshment.  Water,  cold  water,  on  the 
same  soft  hands,  was  smoothed  across  his  forehead,  and 
up  into  his  hair,  around  his  ears,  on  his  cheek  and  on  his 
closed  eyes.  He  felt  the  clean  drops  gather  and  grow, 
one  after  another,  and  run  over  his  face,  beneath  the 
leaves  that  swathed  his  throat,  and  then  down  across  his 
chest.  The  blood,  that  had  been  throbbing  through  the 
great  vessels  of  his  neck,  carrying  waves  of  heat  and 
pain  to  the  distended  little  arteries  of  the  brain,  began  to 
flow  less  fiercely ;  the  tension  of  the  veins  diminished,  and 
over  him  swept  a  sense  of  utter  peace. 

How  long  he  lay  there  he  did  not  know.  For  a  time 
he  must  have  dozed.  When  he  opened  his  eyes  his  com- 
press of  leaves  was  gone,  his  face  and  neck  were  cool  and 
dry,  and  Nani  was  trying  in  vain  to  rebutton  his  collar. 

He  motioned  her  hand  away.     Then  he  sat  up. 

"No,  you  mustn't  move  yet,"  she  said.  "That's  part 
of  my  medicine.  Here,  I'll  put  your  collar  and  tie  in 
your  pocket.  And  now  come  and  have  a  bite  to  eat. ' ' 

She  knelt  at  his  side,  in  one  hand  black  bread  and 
yellow  cheese,  spread  out  on  a  great  fresh  leaf;  in  the 
other,  an  old  wooden  cup  brimming  with  spring-water. 

With  these  she  slowly  fed  him;  of  this  she  gave  him 
to  drink.  To  him,  it  was  a  sacramental  meal,  a  drawing 
near  to  the  simple,  clean  essentials  of  human  life;  a  re- 


120      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

freshment  of  soul  and  body  such  as  he  had  never  known 
before. 

Then,  as  she  raised  the  cup  to  his  lips  once  more, 
he  caught  her  arm  and  kissed  the  firm  brown  flesh. 

She  finished  what  she  was  doing,  finished  giving  him 
his  last  draught  of  water;  then,  as  quietly,  she  folded 
her  arms  and  leaned  back  on  her  heels. 

' '  You  mustn  't  do  that, ' '  she  said.  ' '  It  will  quite  spoil 
my  medicine." 

But  the  finality  of  the  refusal  in  her  tone  did  not  reach 
him.  The  passing  wave  of  desire  had  indeed  died  down 
within  him;  it  had  left  him  ashamed,  but  without  any 
deeper  knowledge  of  himself  or  of  her.  Perhaps,  had  he 
been  watching  her  as  she  had  fetched  the  cool  leaves 
from  the  wood,  as  she  had  laid  them  one  by  one  on  his 
neck  and  breast,  he  might  have  glimpsed  the  truth :  that 
she  was  a  priestess  doing  worship  before  her  idol,  before 
the  Thing  of  Might  that  worked  miracles  for  those  she 
loved,  and  whom  to  serve  on  bended  knee  was  a  fearsome 
delight.  Not  a  mere  man,  whom  she  could  possess  or  who 
could  ever  possibly  possess  her ;  but  a  god,  as  far  removed 
from  her  as  her  parish  priest, — yes,  even  more  so — in 
whose  presence  her  breath  came  always  quicker  with  awe 
— with  passion  never.  Perhaps, — perhaps,  had  he  under- 
stood all  this,  he  might  have  spared  her  the  desolation 
of  an  empty  shrine,  a  vanished  divinity,  a  god  turned 
man;  and  himself  the  sorrow  of  finding  his  place  among 
the  out- worn  deities,  the  lost  ideals  of  a  woman 's  universe. 

She  helped  him  to  his  feet,  and  then  stood  at  a  distance 
until  he  had  found  his  hat  and  had  started  off  towards 
the  road.  From  the  edge  of  the  wood  he  waved  her  a 
good-by;  but  she  did  not  answer.  She  stared  after 
him  contentedly.  He,  the  god,  who  could  fight  and  con- 
quer pain  and  death,  he  had  had  his  hour  of  weakness; 
he  had  come  to  her,  and  she  had  been  permitted  to  re- 
fresh him.  Surely  that  was  enough  happiness  for  any 
woman. 

Edwards  wandered  aimlessly  down  the  road,  uncon- 
scious of  the  fact  that  Franzl,  having  seen  him  go,  had 
plunged  into  the  wood,  making  at  last  for  the  field  that 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      121 

had  so  long  awaited  his  plow.  He  looked  at  the  sun ;  it 
must  be  past  midday.  Yet  he  felt  like  a  giant  refreshed. 
As  he  reached  the  confines  of  the  village,  he  heard  the 
rattle  of  wheels  behind  him,  and  saw  a  wagon  go  by  in 
a  whirl  of  dust :  Kassian  and  Rosine,  returning  from  their 
honeymoon  in  Kufstein,  she  dressed  in  all  the  hideous 
shapelessness  that  stamps  a  settled  married  woman  in 
Thiersee,  he  with  one  arm  about  her,  and  his  mighty 
beard  streaming  in  the  wind.  Edwards  shouted  them  a 
welcome. 

This  happiness  of  theirs  was  partly  his  work.  It  made 
them  worth  while,  those  few  doubtful  minutes  that  he 
had  spent  before  putting  his  signature  to  the  death  cer- 
tificate of  Kassian 's  mother. 

And  there  was  other  work  to  do — plenty  of  it. 

He  paid  a  number  of  visits  that  afternoon,  carrying 
hope  and  good  cheer  wherever  he  came,  and  touched  by 
the  questions  that  met  him  on  every  side.  "But,  Herr 
Doktor,  we  heard  you'd  gone  out.  No  one  knew  where. 
We  thought  perhaps  you'd  gone  for  good.  But  you 
won't  do  that,  will  you?" 

Their  anxiety  to  hold  him  fast  made  him  forget  his 
annoyance  at  the  way  in  which  Franzl  had  evidently 
bungled  his  message  to  Frau  Speckbacher.  And,  tired 
as  he  was,  he  yet  whistled  contentedly  when  he  climbed 
the  steep  steps  of  the  schoolhouse  late  that  afternoon. 

The  children  were  all  gone;  the  hall- way  was  empty. 
But  as  he  passed,  he  heard  voices  in  the  schoolroom,  on 
the  right.  The  door  stood  ajar ;  he  stopped  to  listen. 

"But — but — I  don't  know,  Herr  Lehrer." 

"But  you  must,  Toni.  You  must  know  whether  you'd 
want  to  come  to  me  if  I  said  the  words  like  that.  Sup- 
pose a  strange  man  wandered  into  Thiersee  and  sat  down 
on  our  schoolhouse  steps,  and  all  you  children  crowded 
round  to  stare  at  him.  And  suppose  I  hurried  out  and 
told  you  to  be  off,  and  not  to  bother  the  stranger.  And 
suppose  he  said,  'Oh,  don't  be  cross  with  them.  Suffer 
the  little  children  to  come  unto  me  and  forbid  them  not. ' 
How  would  he  say  it,  Toni,  so  as  to  make  you  all  want 
to  come?" 


122      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"But  I — I — don't  know,  Herr  Lehrer." 

"Then  I'll  never  get  it  right,  Toni,  I'm  afraid. 
Never. ' ' 

Edwards  pushed  open  the  door.  Joncke  was  sitting  at 
his  desk,  raised  on  a  tiny  platform  at  one  end  of  the  room. 
At  the  other  end,  his  flaming  red  head  bent  over  his  book, 
sat  a  small  boy. 

"Oh,  it's  you,"  said  Joncke.  "I'm  glad.  I've  been 
wanting  to  speak  to  you." 

Then,  as  Edwards  came  forward,  he  insisted  on  giving 
him  his  chair,  while  he  himself  leaned  against  the  edge 
of  his  desk,  with  his  back  towards  the  schoolroom. 

"That's  the  best  of  my  lot,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice, 
nodding  towards  the  bent  red  head.  "Oberlaitner's 
Toni.  They  live  miles  away.  But  he's  always  here. — 
Did  you  know  that  our  people  in  Tyrol  are  afraid  of  red 
hair?  They  say  that  a  man  with  red  hair  is  accursed 
of  God;  that  the  Almighty  has  set  a  mark  on  him  to 
bid  others  beware.  Pleasant  for  a  sensitive  child  like 
Toni ! — I  let  him  stay  here  to  do  his  next  day 's  work,  so 
that  he  shan't  have  so  many  books  to  carry  home.  He's 
terribly  keen  about  the  Passion-Play.  I  don't  believe 
he  thinks  of  anything  else.  And  I — I  don't  discourage 
him.  He  hasn't  got  many  things  of  interest  in  his  life, 
poor  child.  He  knows  almost  the  whole  text  by  heart. 
So  sometimes,  I  let  him  hear  me  my  role.  Often  a  child 
like  that  can — can " 

Edwards  nodded  encouragingly. 

"Can  give  us  older  people  points.  I  understand.  Is 
he  to  have  a  part  ? ' ' 

"Oh,  he'll  come  on  with  the  other  children  in  the 
chorus.  But  he  won 't  have  anything  to  say.  And  that 's 
what's  making  him  eat  his  heart  out.  He's  sure  he'll 
never  get  a  part  because  of  his  red  hair.  Except  perhaps 
Judas.  And  he  hasn't  much  sympathy  with  Judas,  you 
see.  Why,  he  could  do  the  herald,  the  child-angel  that 
speaks  the  prologue ;  do  it  beautifully.  Only  Hochwiir- 
den  has  promised  it  to  Nani.  Imagine  a  girl  as  an  angel ! 
But  Father  Mathias  is  so  unconventional.  He  doesn't 
consider  that.  I've  never  dared  suggest  his  trying  Toni, 


Besides,  the  boy's  too  young.  Not  twelve  yet.  But  I 

thought,  perhaps,  if  you  would  speak — if  you  would 

Only  you  must  hear  him  first. — Toni,  the  Herr  Doktor 
wants  to  hear  part  of  the  closing  lines.  You  know,  what 
the  herald-angel  says  at  the  end  of  the  Play. ' ' 

He  turned  to  Edwards. 

' '  We  don 't  dress  the  part  like  an  angel, ' '  he  explained. 
' '  We  put  the  child  in  a  plain  white  alb,  with  crossed  stole, 
like  the  deacon  at  High  Mass.  Can  you  conceive  of  Nani 
in  that  dress?  Well,  Toni,  begin." 

The  boy  stepped  out  into  the  narrow  aisle  between  the 
benches,  quite  simply,  quite  without  embarrassment. 

"Not  all  of  it,  Herr  Lehrer,"  he  said.  "You  mean 
just  the  last  part." 

Then  he  folded  his  hands  across  his  breast,  lifted  his 
eyes  to  where  Edwards  sat,  and  began — 

"May  HE,  Whose  form  you  here  have  seen, 
Moving  across  our  stage  of  green, 
Be  with  you  ever,  till  at  last, 
When  sorrow's  done  and  death's  o'erpast, 
We  see  His  glorious  Face  again. 
And  so — " 

(He  bowed  his  head  and  slowly  signed  himself  with  the 
cross.) 

— "God  bless  us  all.     Amen." 

The  "Amen"  was  scarcely  breathed,  so  gently  did  it 
fall  on  the  quiet  evening  air. 

Edwards  sat  spellbound.  For  the  voice  had  rung  as 
clear,  as  true  as  the  soft  notes  of  some  shepherd's  pipe. 
He  remembered  the  rough  throaty  voices  of  the  other  chil- 
dren and  marveled. 

His  task  finished,  the  boy  sat  down  and  was  soon  deep 
in  his  book  once  more.  Edwards  turned  to  the  school- 
master. 

"You're  right,"  he  said  enthusiastically.  "He  is 
Treasure  Trove  indeed.  But  even  if  he  is  too  young  for 
this  year 's  Play,  he  '11  be  at  his  best  for  the  next. ' ' 

Joncke's  eyes  began  to  shimmer;  he  shook  his  head. 

"He's  going  lame," 


124      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Then,  leaning  forward  abruptly,  he  laid  his  hands  on 
Edwards'  shoulders. 

"Do  something  for  him,  can't  you?"  he  stammered 
under  his  breath.  ' '  You  can.  You  're  like  a  god,  people 
say.  I've  been  hearing  about  nothing  else  ever  since  I 
came  back.  Like  Nebuchadnezzar  in  the  Bible :  '  Whom 
he  would,  he  raised  up;  and  whom  he  would,  he  cast 
down.  Whom  he  would,  he  slew;  and  whom  he  would, 
he  kept  alive.'  Help  Toni.  Help  me.  It's  only  just 
begun,  the  lameness.  But  I've  been  on  the  watch  for  it 
these  last  two  years.  His  sister  was  the  best  dancer  in 
the  village.  Such  a  splendid  girl!  She  could  dance 
down  most  of  the  men,  till  she  began  to  have  shooting 
pains  in  her  back,  that  ran  down  into  her  hips  and  legs. 
'Rheumatism,'  the  idiots  said.  They  doctored  her,  and 
rubbed  her  with  God  knows  what.  Then,  after  a  while, 
they  took  her  to  Innsbruck.  She  was  there  six  months. 
And  she  came  back — came  back  a  cripple.  I  don 't  know 
much  about  such  things.  But  I  know  that  two  of  the 
lower  vertebra?  were  found  to  be  honeycombed  with  dis- 
ease, ready  to  break  at  any  moment  and  crush  the  spinal 
cord.  The  doctors  in  Innsbruck  gave  her  a  sort  of  steel 
corset  that  held  her  up  so  that  she  could  walk.  But  of 
course  she  died.  Her  people  killed  her.  Oh,  I  don't 
mean  that  they  cut  her  throat  or  smothered  her  with  a 
pillow.  But  life  here  doesn't  leave  any  place  for  the  sick 
or  the  maimed.  Her  family  thought  she  was  just  lazy; 
she  didn't  really  look  so  very  ill.  And  they  made  her 
work.  Then  the  steel  corset  got  broken.  Who  was  go- 
ing to  the  bother  of  having  it  repaired?  Let  her  get 
along  without  it. — Well,  you  can  guess  the  rest.  Sooner 
or  later  all  lame  things  are  killed  here.  And — and — 
Toni's  going  lame." 

Edwards  removed  the  schoolmaster's  hands  from  his 
shoulders,  for  their  nervous  grasp  was  digging  into  his 
flesh.  The  man's  high-strung  sentimentality  was  dis- 
tressing. Yet  here  was  another  tribute  to  his  power  as 
a  physician,  and  that  pleased  him.  To  be  like  Nebuchad- 
nezzar !  "Whom  he  would,  he  slew ;  and  whom  he  would, 
he  kept  alive."  It  was  indeed  a  marvelous  thing  this 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      125 

power,  that  was  his  to  exercise  or  not  according  to  his 
will  and  pleasure. 

"Don't  get  yourself  so  wrought  up,"  he  answered 
calmly.  "We'll  do  what  we  can.  First  of  all,  I  must 
examine  the  boy.  Then  we  must  see  that  he  has  absolute 
rest.  If  there  is  any  danger  of  coxitis,  the  long  walk 
to  school  every  day  is  out  of  the  question. ' ' 

"He'd  rather  come  on  one  leg  than  not  at  all.  And 
his  mother's  a  hard  woman.  It  seems  so  impossible  to 
find  any  way  to  help  the  child. ' ' 

In  a  fresh  outburst  of  despair  the  schoolmaster  clasped 
his  hands  together  and  stood  in  front  of  Edwards,  trem- 
bling. 

"Ah,  if  you  could — could  keep  him  well — I — I  would 
serve  you  on  my  knees.  I  would  kiss  the  ground 
where " 

' '  For  heaven 's  sake,  don 't  talk  like  that, ' '  interrupted 
Edwards,  so  rudely  that  he  saw  the  young  man's  face 
flush  with  shame.  "But  I've  an  idea  that  may  help  us 
all.  There's  surely  an  extra  bed  to  be  got  somewhere. 
"We  might  put  it  into  my  living-room.  Toni — that's 
his  name,  isn't  it? — could  sleep  there,  and  I  can  rig  up 
an  extension-bandage  for  the  threatened  hip.  As  for 
his  mother — well,  suppose  I  give  him  a  crown  a-week  for 
cleaning  my  instruments  and  sweeping  out  the  room. 
We  '11  let  him  sweep  for  an  hour,  then  get  back  into  bed, 
and  clean  the  instruments  or  learn  his  lessons  there. 
And  the  crown  he  can  send  to  his  mother.  How  will  that 
do?" 

Joncke  put  his  hand  to  his  throat.  Then  he  turned 
aside,  went  to  the  window  and  looked  out.  After  a  mo- 
ment or  two  he  came  back.  His  voice  shook  a  little. 

"I  shall  not  try  to  thank  you,"  he  said.  "Whenever 
I  speak  to  you  from  the  heart  you  despise  me.  I  read 
it  in  your  eyes.  So  I  shall  say  nothing.  I  shall  only 
pray  that  God  may  send  me  something  to  do — for  you. ' ' 

And  so  that  night  saw  the  beginning  of  Edwards' 
' '  Clinic, "  in  a  room  scarcely  twenty  feet  square.  Ober- 
laitner's  Toni  was  the  first  patient.  His  bed  was  the  old 
bier,  used  by  the  sexton  to  carry  coffins  into  church,  and 


126      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

lately  discarded  for  a  better  one.  His  sheets  were  spread 
over  rough  straw,  and  his  ' '  Hip-Extension ' '  was  made  of 
Frau  Speckbacher's  clothesline,  weighted  with  one  of  her 
broken  flat-irons. 

But  Toni  was  happy.  And  Herr  Joncke,  to  whom 
Edwards  had  assigned  the  duties  of  Assistant,  Dresser, 
and  Adjutant,  all  rolled  into  one,  was  actually  heard  to 
whistle. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  four  weeks  that  followed,  as  Edwards  looked  back 
on  them  in  later  years,  seemed  the  happiest  time  of  his 
life  at  Thiersee.  He  was  unaware  of  the  storm  that 
was  gathering,  both  in  his  own  soul  and  in  the  little 
world  around  him.  He  only  knew  that  he  felt  his  power 
to  help ;  that  the  few  sick  people  got  well ;  that  the  in- 
curable cases  got  better;  and  that  Toni  was  less  lame. 

There  were  two  apologies  for  beds  now  in  Edwards' 
living-room.  For  *Toni  had  been  given  a  companion :  a 
baby-girl,  some  four  years  old,  with  the  ''English  Dis- 
ease," a  case  in  which,  as  Edwards  said,  merely  because 
of  the  opprobrium  implied  in  the  name,  he  was  bound 
to  do  all  he  could.  And  he  knew  that  in  just  such  cases 
wonders  might  be  worked  by  change  of  food  and  air. 

But  little  Helena  and  Toni  had  appetites;  and  Frau 
Speckbacher  made  a  long  face  at  the  things  Edwards 
insisted  on  having  prepared  for  them.  As  for  Joncke, 
the  cloud  that  oppressed  him  seemed  to  have  lifted. 
Every  moment  that  he  could  spare  from  his  work  was 
spent  in  the  tiny  clinic,  where  he  washed,  dressed,  and 
amused  the  two  small  patients.  So  it  chanced  one  eve- 
ning when  Edwards,  coming  in  unexpectedly,  found  the 
schoolmaster  clothed  in  one  of  Frau  Speckbacher 's  larg- 
est aprons  and  drying  little  Helena,  who  lay  face  down- 
wards on  his  knee,  that  the  tragedy  of  the  man's  inner 
life  was  suddenly  spread  out  before  him. 

For  this  man  loved  little  children  passionately,  as 
only  women  do:  women  who  can  bear  them  and  so  win 
the  right  to  be  near  them,  to  rear  and  love  them  always. 
And  nature,  in  some  evil  moment,  had  clothed  this 
woman-like  mind  in  the  envelope  of  a  man's  body.  But 
not  only  that.  She  had  even  denied  him  the  joy  of  ever 
having  children  of  his  own ;  inasmuch  as  the  female  ele- 

127 


128      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

ment  in  his  strangely-mixed  personality  was  repelled  as 
like  from  like  by  the  feminine  soul  of  every  woman  that 
stretched  out  to  meet  him,  expecting  to  find  her  opposite 
and  completion. 

It  was  the  woman  in  him  that  made  him  so  sentimental, 
so  easily  offended  or  moved  to  tears.  Yet  the  other  part 
of  his  cleft  personality  sat  in  judgment  on  all  this  and 
condemned  it,  mocked  at  it  as  a  woman's  weakness,  and 
so  rent  his  whole  being  in  twain.  Nevertheless  he  was 
a  good  teacher,  an  excellent  disciplinarian.  For  that  he 
could  thank  his  long  line  of  peasant  forebears,  whose  lack 
of  introspection  he  had  inherited,  and  whose  hard-headed- 
ness  had  given  him  the  mental  balance  that  still  kept 
order  in  the  divided  household  of  his  soul. 

Edwards  was  tenderer  with  him  after  this  moment  of 
revelation.  He  himself  was  so  utterly  male  that  women, 
as  such,  had  played  but  a  brief,  if  a  decisive,  part  in  his 
life.  To  him,  "feminine"  meant  second-rate  in  every- 
thing, an  effeminate  man,  a  horror  beyond  words ;  but  he 
was  by  nature  a  physician,  and  the  sickness  of  Joncke's 
mind  appealed  to  him. 

The  days  passed  rapidly.  Now  an'd  then,  at  noon, 
when  he  imagined  himself  weary  with  well-doing,  he 
would  seek  Nani  under  the  old  pine-tree  and  would  let 
her  give  him  what  she  called  her  "bath  of  leaves." 
Sometimes  Franzl  was  there;  but  he  never  stayed  long. 
He  was  very  busy  seeding  down,  he  said. 

And  the  evenings 

Ah,  those  April  evenings,  after  the  early  sunset,  when 
there  was  still  a  bracing  chill  in  the  air,  and  he  stood  on 
the  slope  of  the  garden  outside  the  house,  at  Nani's  win- 
dow, looking  into  the  little  room  where  she  slept,  and 
beyond  its  shadows  into  the  kitchen,  where  her  mother's 
shadow  came  and  went  against  the  flare  of  the  hearth-fire. 
Sometimes  Nani  would  see  him  standing  there.  Then 
she  would  hasten  from  her  work  at  her  mother's  side  to 
lean  over  the  window-sill  and  bend  down  towards  him, 
perhaps  to  straighten  his  tie  or  brush  a  speck  of  dust 
from  his  collar ;  or  she  would  be  knitting  at  the  open  win- 
dow when  he  came.  And  then  he  would  tell  her  of  what 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      129 

the  day  had  brought  him ;  of  its  small  trials ;  of  its  great 
triumphs.  How  Gipfl-Marie  had  had  another  asthmatic 
attack ;  how  little  Kathe  was  about  again  on  her  broken 
leg  as  well  as  ever;  how  Eisenbauer's  Michel's  hand, 
where  he  had  chopped  it  with  the  rusty  ax,  was  healing 
at  last,  and  the  fever  almost  gone. 

And  Nani, — she  was  only  seventeen, — would  nod  her 
head  and  smile  contentedly,  proud  of  this  Worker  of 
Wonders  who  came  to  her  with  his  feats  of  prowess; 
proud  as  a  priestess  whose  god  has  been  carried  abroad 
in  time  of  pestilence  and  has  stayed  the  plague. 

But  she  never  showed  him  what  it  was  that  she  was 
knitting. 

And  he  was  too  self-engrossed  to  ask. 

Yes,  those  were  wonderful  weeks.  Every  Sunday, 
after  Rosary  and  Benediction  at  two  o'clock,  the  whole 
community  strolled  from  the  church  down  to  the  shore 
of  the  lake,  where  there  was  a  wide  level  space  set  with 
groups  of  gnarled  old  trees.  Here  was  their  stage.  And 
here  Edwards,  looking  into  the  schoolmaster's  unhappy 
eyes  as  he  stood  before  him,  surrounded  by  four  youths 
in  their  shiny  Sunday  coats,  forgot  all  sense  of  incon- 
gruity and  felt  his  own  voice  quaver  with  sudden  emotion, 
when  he  asked,  for  the  first  time,  "Art  thou  a  king, 
then?" 

Had  he  been  taking  any  role  but  that  of  Pilate,  the 
simple  people,  who  were  all  eager  to  play  themselves, 
might  have  thought  his  acting  an  intrusion.  But  Pilate 
suited  him.  To  them  who  identified  themselves  with 
Christ  and  His  followers,  the  Roman  governor  was  the 
stranger,  the  outsider,  but  the  man  of  power  also,  who 
held  life  and  death  in  his  right  hand.  Who  said :  ' '  Let 
him  be  crucified."  It  was  a  mystery  that  such  things 
should  be.  Yet  their  Herr  Doktor  was  a  mystery  too ;  a 
man  of  another  people,  like  Pilate,  and  who  had  power 
over  life  and  death.  Who  said  to  pain,  ' '  Let  it  be  cruci- 
fied." And  it  was  so. 

Therefore,  to  their  minds,  he  fitted  exquisitely  to  his 
role;  and  many  of  the  younger  men  envied  their  brothers 
and  cousins,  now  doing  their  military  service  in  Inns- 


130      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

brack,  who  were  to  be  his  Roman  Guard  on  the  great  day 
of  the  Passion-Play. 

The  rehearsals  were  not  over-fatiguing.  Everyone 
knew  everyone  else's  part;  there  was  no  need  of  a 
prompter.  And  the  fat  little  priest  could  spend  all  his 
time  trotting  from  one  actor  to  another,  suggesting  a 
pose,  giving  an  intonation;  and  then,  when  the  other's 
dull  mind  had  failed  to  catch  his  meaning,  or  the  clumsy 
body  had  made  of  his  pose  a  graceless  posture,  throwing 
his  old  black  straw  hat  on  the  ground  and  dancing  on  it 
in  despair. 

"Forget  what  I  said,"  he  would  shout.  ''Forget  it. 
Do  it  the  way  you  think  it  ought  to  be.  That'll  be  the 
right,  the  natural  way  after  all." 

But  with  Ascension  Day  these  wonderful  weeks  came 
suddenly  to  an  end. 

No  doubt  the  weather  was  partially  to  blame.  It  had 
turned  cold,  and  there  was  even  a  feeling  of  snow  in  the 
air.  The  roads  were  muddy,  the  meadows  damp  and 
bedraggled.  Of  course,  the  morning  of  the  feast-day  was 
bearable,  for  everybody  was  in  church.  No  one,  except 
the  bedridden,  would  miss  ' '  seeing  Christ  ascend. ' ' 

"What  would  you?"  demanded  the  priest  of  Edwards 
as  they  stood  talking  in  the  sacristy,  just  before  the  mass 
began.  "It's  an  abuse, — a  liturgical  abuse,  I  admit. 
Like  the  Holy  Graves  on  Good  Friday.  But  just  try  to 
take  it  away  and  see  what  happens.  Why,  in  1809,  it 
wasn  't  the  Habsburgs  and  liberty  that  these  hard-headed 
people  fought  for.  It  was  for  their  ascending  Christ, 
their  Easter  Graves,  and  all  their  old  familiar  abuses 
that  the  good  Bavarian  king  had  tried  to  reform. 
'Tolerari  potest,'  my  friend. — Can  be  put  up  with,  in- 
deed ! — Must  be  put  up  with,  say  I. — Run  along  to  your 
seat.  The  acolyte  has  got  his  censer  red-hot  and  is  burn- 
ing holes  in  his  new  cassock.  We  must  begin,  or  he'll 
set  the  whole  church  on  fire. ' ' 

The  parish  church  of  Thiersee  possessed  one  treasure, 
which  Edwards  did  most  particularly  detest.  It  was  a 
life-sized  figure  of  wood  that  sat,  for  most  of  the  Chris- 
tian year,  in  a  niche  of  the  church  wall,  behind  iron  bars, 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      131 

dressed  in  a  purple  robe  and  wearing  a  crown  of  thorns. 
A  representation  to  the  faithful  of  the  Savior's  flagella- 
tion and  bitter  suffering.  On  Easter  Even  it  was  arrayed 
in  white,  and  was  pulled  up  by  cords  over  the  empty 
cardboard  grave,  at  the  breathless  moment  when  the 
priest  sings  out  into  the  expectant  silence,  ' '  Der  Heiland 
ist  erstanden. ' '  In  this  position  it  swung  until  Ascension 
Day,  and  then  it  was  given  a  red  flag  with  a  white  cross 
on  it,  a  rope  was  run  up  to  the  highest  pitch  of  the  church 
roof,  and  the  image  concealed  beneath  a  cloth  in  the 
organ-loft.  It  was  Kassian's  duty  to  keep  hold  of  the 
free  end  of  the  rope,  and,  when  the  sacring-bell  rang,  to 
pull. 

Edwards  had  a  real  affection  for  the  homely  interior  of 
the  little  church.  The  priest  at  the  altar  was  not  only  his 
friend,  but  a  man  of  God.  And  he  had  grown  almost 
accustomed  to  the  bad  music.  Yet  on  this  Ascension  Day 
he  could  find  but  little  devotion  in  the  ancient  liturgy, 
although  he  remembered  how  his  boyish  heart  used  to 
thrill  to  "King  All  Glorious,"  and  tried  vainly  to  cast 
back  his  mind  to  those  years  of  unquestioning  belief. 
His  eyes,  and  the  eyes  of  everybody  else,  kept  wandering 
to  the  swinging  rope  that  hung  from  the  roof.  He  did 
not  realize  the  importance  which  it  bore  to  the  people 
about  him.  They  all  believed  that,  as  "the  Lord 
ascended  into  heaven"  (by  means  of  Kassian's  pulling  on 
the  rope),  He  would  turn  His  face — that  is,  the  image 
would  swing  round  to  that  particular  point  of  the  com- 
pass from  which  the  farmer  might  expect  the  worst 
storms  during  the  coming  year.  And  how  important 
such  a  matter  is  to  the  man  whose  whole  year 's  work  may 
be  ruined  by  too  much  or  too  little  rain,  only  a  farmer 
knows. 

The  harsh  sacring-bell  rang  out.  Edwards  fell  on 
his  knees  and  covered  his  face  with  his  hands.  He  was 
utterly  ashamed  of  himself.  Never  before  had  he  done 
more  than  bow  his  head  at  the  moment  of  the  sacrifice, 
and  now  he  was  acting  a  devotion  he  did  not  feel,  so  that 

so  that  he  might  not  watch  that  awful  ridiculous 

figure  go  swaying  through  the  church,  whirling  about, 


132      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

jerked  higher  and  higher  until  it  banged  against  the 
roof. 

When  at  last  he  rose  to  his  feet,  shamed  and  humiliated, 
he  saw  Kassian  wiping  the  sweat  from  his  brow.  His 
neighbor,  the  Biirgermeister,  pointed  upwards  to  where 
the  figure  swung  aloft,  holding  out  its  red,  shaking  ban- 
ner, and  said  in  a  loud  whisper — 

' '  The  storms  '11  be  coming  up  the  valley  this  year  from, 
Kufstein  way.  Though  I've  lived  here,  man  and  boy, 
and  never  seen  'em  come  that  way  yet." 

As  the  people  streamed  out  of  church,  Edwards  passed 
Rosine,  who  was  smoothing  down  the  back  of  Kassian 's 
jacket.  She  seemed  immensely  proud  of  him,  and  Ed- 
wards heard  her  say — 

"Well,  go  then.  Thou  must  be  thirsty  enough  after 
that  pull.  I  '11  hold  thy  dinner  hot  for  thee  half  an  hour. 
No  more." 

But  that  same  afternoon,  after  Rosary,  when  the  play- 
ers gathered  for  their  rehearsal  on  the  lake  shore,  the 
rehearsal  had  to  take  place  without  St.  Peter. 

"He  went  back  to  the  Drachen-Wirt  after  dinner," 
said  Gipfl-Marie  disdainfully.  "And  Rosine  can't  hold 

him.  I  know  what  it  is,  a  brandy-drinker. Their 

victuals  has  to  be  just  so;  and  when  they've  once  started 
drinking  they  won 't  hear  no  reason. ' ' 

Still  later — it  was  after  sunset — Edwards  was  stand- 
ing outside  Nani's  window,  leaning  across  the  sill  and 
looking  down,  as  he  loved  to  do,  at  the  outline  of  her 
bended  head  and  neck,  when  Franzl,  followed  by  a  crowd 
of  stragglers,  came  running  up  the  road  from  the  village. 
He  gave  Edwards  a  surly  glance  as  he  caught  sight  of 
Nani  's  face  at  the  window. 

"The  Herr  Doktor  must  come  at  once/'  he  said. 
* '  Kassian  has  put  his  arm  through  a  pane  of  glass  at  the 
'  Drachen '  and  is  bleeding  to  death.  We  can 't  stop  it. ' ' 

Edwards  was  off  in  an  instant.  Ever  since  he  had 
been  in  Thiersee  he  had  been  expecting  something  of 
this  kind.  Now  he  knew  where  to  lay  his  hand  on  ex- 
actly what  he  needed.  In  a  few  moments  he  was  hurry- 
ing after  Franzl  down  the  darkening  road. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      133 

Kassian  was  lying  on  the  floor  of  the  inn  in  a  pool  of 
blood,  his  right  arm  bound  round  and  round  with  towels 
and  napkins,  through  which  the  red  drops  oozed  slowly. 
It  did  not  take  Edwards  long  to  get  things  to  rights. 
He  slit  up  the  sleeve  and  bound  an  "Esmarch"  rubber 
bandage  tightly  around  the  arm,  just  above  the  elbow, 
till  all  the  vessels  of  the  hand  were  cut  off  from  the  heart. 
Then,  throwing  aside  the  towels  that  hid  the  wrist,  he 
set  boundaries  to  the  wound  with  sterile  cloths,  sopped 
up  the  little  remaining  blood  with  aseptic  gauze,  selected 
a  clamp  and  held  it  open,  ready  to  clasp  it  on  the  severed 
radial  artery. 

But  where  was  the  artery  ? 

He  remembered  so  well  the  picture  in  his  anatomical 
atlas:  a  transverse  section,  laid  through  the  arm  just 
above  the  wrist,  where  all  the  muscles  were  clearly  out- 
lined, the  nerves  colored  white,  the  blood-vessels  red. 
He  remembered,  too,  his  old  teacher  of  practical  surgery 
demonstrating  on  the  "cadaver"  and  saying,  "At  the 
wrist,  gentlemen,  the  radial  and  ulnar  arteries  look  each 
other  in  the  face  across  the  hand;  the  nerves  are  on  the 
outside." 

But  these  memory-pictures — and  he  strained  himself 
to  bring  them  clearly  before  his  mind's  eye — had  little 
or  nothing  in  common  with  the  jagged  wound  that  gaped 
beneath  his  fingers.  The  cut  ran  unevenly  across  the 
wrist  and  up  into  the  thumb;  the  ligaments  under  the 
corium  were  severed  and  sprung  apart,  so  that  the  ten- 
dons and  tendon-sheaths  were  no  longer  held  together 
in  compact  bundles,  but  lay  all  mixed  up  together  like 
tangled  strands  of  shining  silk.  And  in  the  depths  of 
this  mass  of  tendon  and  bleeding  muscle  somewhere  were 
the  nerves, — the  veins, — above  all,  the  ends  of  the  severed 
radial  artery. 

And  while  he  mopped  out  the  wound — for  the 
"Esinarch"  above  the  elbow  had  stopped  the  bleeding, 
or  at  least  the  spouting  of  the,  larger  vessels, — while  he 
called  up  again  and  again  in  his  mind  the  pictures  from 
his  anatomical  atlas,  the  little  group  of  onlookers  at  his 
shoulder  waited  and  watched  their  Wonder-Man,  breath- 


134      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

ing  heavily  on  the  back  of  his  neck,  cutting  off  his  light, 
making  him  more  and  more  nervous  as  moment  after 
moment  passed  by. 

He  had  pictured  the  scene  quite  differently.  As  he 
had  hastened  down  the  road,  he  had  planned  out  the 
entire  operation.  It  was  to  be  one  of  those  imposing 
little  matters  that  he  did  with  such  zest.  "Big  Medi- 
cine, ' '  as  Father  Mathias  would  have  said.  He  expected 
to  find  the  artery  severed — a  minor  detail.  He  would 
ligature  that.  Then,  no  doubt,  several  tendons  would  be 
cut  also,  and  here  he  could  show  his  people  something. 
He  would  do  a  ' '  tendon-suture ' '  under  their  noses ;  would 
pick  up  the  loose  ends.  True,  these  same  ends  sometimes 
snapped  back  into  their  sheaths  like  cut  elastic  bands,  and 
were  hard  to  find.  But  he  would  find  them.  And  if 
they  were  difficult  to  join  he  would  make  one  of  those 
clever  diverging  incisions  by  means  of  which  the  length 
of  a  tendon  is  increased  by  the  few  necessary  millimeters 
without  weakening  it  at  all.  And  perhaps,  he  had 
thought  as  he  ran  on — perhaps  one  of  the  nerves  would 
be  severed  too;  probably  the  superficial  strand  of  the 
radial  nerve.  In  that  case  he  would  close  the  wound 
temporarily,  and  later  he  could  do  a  plastic  nerve  opera- 
tion. They  required  great  skill;  but  he  had  watched 
Professor  Schroeder  at  work  on  just  such  a  case.  He 
ought  to  be  able  to  do  the  trick. 

And  now, — here  he  was  fussing  about  in  the  open 
wound.  He  did  not  even  know  which  was  artery,  which 
nerve. 

And  there  at  his  shoulder  stood  the  expectant  group 
of  onlookers. 

Aha,  that  must  be  it ! 

From  beneath  a  ragged  mass  of  connective  tissue  his 
forceps  had  drawn  up  one  end  of  a  vessel,  a  tiny  col- 
lapsed tube,  cut  neatly  through.  From  the  open  end  he 
could  press  a  single  drop  of  blood.  This  was  no  nerve, 
then.  Good ! 

In  a  moment  he  had  slipped  the  silk  beneath  it,  had 
tied  it  fast.  Then  he  made  two  more  ligatures  a  few 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      135 

millimeters  higher  up  for  safety's  sake.  So  that  was 
done. 

He  picked  out  the  distal  end  of  one  of  the  severed 
tendons.  Where  was  the  other  end  that  belonged  to  it? 

He  poked  about ;  he  laid  the  unhurt  tendons  aside ; 
he  looked  and  looked.  Not  one  but  three  tendons  were 
severed,  and  of  their  proximal  ends  not  a  thing  was  to 
be  seen.  "Like  elastic  bands,"  he  remembered.  They 
had  snapped  upwards,  towards  the  muscle  from  which 
they  sprang.  To  recover  them  he  would  have  to  increase 
the  size  of  the  wound,  make  a  long  incision  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  elbow.  And  even  then,  would  he  surely 
find  them  ? 

Fifteen  minutes  had  passed  already.  The  group  be- 
hind him  was  getting  restless. 

The  sweat  poured  down  his  face.  After  all  he  had 
better  leave  the  tendons  alone,  for  to-day.  Later,  when 
the  wound  had  healed  a  bit  and  the  stiffness  of  certain 
fingers  had  shown  him  which  tendons  were  cut,  then  he 
could  make  a  fresh  incision  and  do  a  plastic  operation, — 
rejoin  the  nerve,  too,  if  it  were  severed.  Perhaps.  He 
was  not  so  certain  of  that  now. 

He  sopped  the  wound  clean  of  the  small  amount  of 
blood  that  had  meanwhile  trickled  from  the  tiny  capil- 
laries, looked  once  more  at  his  ligature  of  the  artery, 
and  brought  the  unhurt  tendons  into  such  order  as  he 
could.  Now  he  felt  surer  of  himself ;  he  worked  quickly. 
And  now  he  had  caught  together  the  gaping  edges  with  a 
few  stitches  that  could  be  easily  removed  did  the  wound 
not  do  well.  Then  he  dabbed  the  whole  wrist  with  iodine 
and  bandaged. 

He  was  proud  of  his  bandaging. 

"When  it  was  done  the  arm  really  looked  first-rate. 
The  folds  of  the  bandage  lay  so  evenly  over  one  another ; 
not  a  wrinkle  anywhere. 

Meanwhile,  sobered  by  the  loss  of  blood,  Kassian  had 
opened  his  eyes.  He  glanced  down  contentedly  at  his 
neatly-bandaged  wrist. 

"He's  to  be  taken  home  at  once,"  said  Edwards. 


136      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"Two  or  three  of  you  go  with  him  and  see  that  he's 
put  to  bed.  He  has  lost  a  lot  of  blood,  remember. ' ' 

He  did  not  follow  his  patient.  What  was  the  use? 
He  would  come  and  see  him  in  the  morning. 

As  he  turned  away,  however,  he  heard  the  Biirger- 
meister  say  to  his  son  Franzl,  who  had  thrown  a  coat 
over  Kassian's  shoulders  and  was  helping  him  to  'his 
feet,  "And  then  thou'll  fetch  the  priest." 

Edwards  was  on  the  point  of  protesting.  There  was 
no  danger.  Why  fetch  the  priest,  then  ?  For  a  moment 
he  thought  of  explaining  to  the  Biirgermeister  how  sim- 
ple the  whole  thing  was,  how  sure  of  healing ;  thought  of 
explaining  what  he  intended  to  do  for  the  severed  ten- 
dons, so  that  Kassian  should  not  even  have  a  stiff,  use- 
less finger  as  a  memento  of  this  Ascension  Day.  But 
then  he  remembered  something  that  the  priest  had  said 
to  him  only  a  few  days  before,  "A  man  who  makes  'Big 
Medicine,'  like  you  and  me,  must  keep  to  himself  his 
little  ways  of  making  it.  Religion  never  explains.  Sci- 
ence, so  far  as  the  layman  is  concerned,  ought  to  be  proud 
enough  to  follow  her  example. ' ' 

So  Edwards  told  the  Biirgermeister  nothing.  If  these 
people  thought  that  Kassian  had  been  or  was  in  great 
danger,  let  them  think  so.  All  the  greater  glory  to  him 
when  they  found  themselves  mistaken. 

But  to  Joncke,  whom  he  met  hurrying  towards  him 
down  the  road,  he  had  to  speak.  The  little  operation 
had  somewhat  shaken  his  nerves.  By  describing  it  to 
another,  not  exactly  as  it  had  been  but  as  he  had  orig- 
inally planned  it  in  his  mind,  he  felt  instinctively  that 
his  self-confidence  would  be  strengthened  anew. 

"You  needn't  be  in  such  a  hurry,"  he  said,  detaining 
Joncke.  "Kassian's  right  enough.  I  tied  up  the  ar- 
tery." 

He  began  to  describe  the  wound.  Suddenly  he 
stopped;  his  jaw  dropped. 

"What's  the  matter?"  Joncke  demanded. 

Edwards  did  not  answer.  Then,  after  a  moment's 
silence,  he  said — 

"Something  had  slipped  my  mind,  and  I've  just  re- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      137 

membered  it.  Please  run  down  to  Kassian's  house  and 
tell  Rosine  to  take  off  the  rubber  bandage  that  I  put 
round  his  upper  arm  to  stop  the  bleeding. ' ' 

Joncke  hurried  off.    But  Edwards  did  not  move. 

The"Esmarch"! 

He  had  quite  forgotten  to  unwind  it  after  tying  up 
the  artery.  He  must  have  been  badly  frightened  to  do 
that.  The  idiots  who  were  looking  after  Kassian  might 
have  supposed  it  to  be  part  of  the  dressing  and  have  kept 
it  on  all  night.  And  a  wounded  hand,  with  all  blood- 
nourishment  cut  off  from  it  for  twelve  hours !  Heavens, 
how  could  such  a  wound  even  begin  to  heal  ? 

Well,  there  was  no  harm  done. 

But— but 

If  he  had  removed  the  "Esmarch,"  as  he  ought  to 
have  done  after  tying  up  the  severed  artery,  the  rush  of 
blood  would  have  shown  him  whether  any  other  smaller 
vessels  had  been  injured.  He  could  have  ligatured  these. 
Then,  too,  he  would  have  been  sure  that  he  had  found — 
had  found 

"What  a  fool  I  am,"  he  told  himself  angrily.  "I've 
lost  my  balance,  just  because  I  had  to  work  fifteen  min- 
utes instead  of  five  over  that  confounded  wound.  It 
wasn't  typical.  That  was  the  trouble.  With  a  normal 
typical  wound  I'd  have  been  all  right.  Such  unusual 
cases  happen  to  everyone.  I  won't  think  about  it  any 
more. ' ' 

And  he  did  not.  When  Joncke  came  back,  carrying 
the  roll  of  rubber-bandage,  and  told  him  how  he  had 
found  Kassian  being  shriven  by  the  hurriedly-summoned 
priest,  they  laughed  together  over  the  terror  that  besets 
most  men  at  the  visible  loss  of  blood,  while  a  deadly  in- 
ternal malady  leaves  them  unmoved.  And  then,  together 
with  Nani,  they  held  their  "evening  visit"  in  their  tiny 
Clinic,  absorbed — all  three — in  discussing  the  possibility 
of  making  room  for  still  another  bed. 

Moreover,  the  auditing  of  the  last  week's  accounts, 
after  supper  in  the  kitchen  downstairs,  drove  all  minor 
worries  from  Edwards'  mind.  For  his  own  small  sav- 
ings were  rapidly  dwindling,  and  from  the  Burger- 


138      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

meister  he  could  claim  nothing  until  quarter-day.  But 
Joncke 's  enthusiasm  prevailed  over  Frau  Speckbacher 's 
anxious  warnings.  There  would  be  a  third  bed.  A  few 
boards,  some  straw,  and  Joncke  had  insisted  on  offering 
one  of  his  own  sheets.  It  was  long ;  cut  in  half  it  would 
make  two  sheets  for  Greier-Susi 's  baby,  that  had  been 
left  alone  to  fall  across  the  hot  stove  and  burn  its  thin 
little  body  most  cruelly.  Greier-Susi 's  young  man  was 
doing  his  military  service,  and  she  did  work  by  the  day 
at  different  farmhouses,  dropping  the  child — one  of  the 
Unexpected  that  had  broken  poor  Father  Holtzmann's 
heart — here  or  there,  as  she  would  drop  her  hat  or  cloak, 
when  she  went  out  to  work  in  field  or  stable. 

As  Edwards  counted  over  his  small  store  of  ready 
money  that  same  night,  he  came  across  Professor 
Schroeder's  card,  on  which  his  kind  old  friend  had 
written  those  mysterious  words,  "GYGES  HIS  RING."  It 
was  strange,  Edwards  thought,  that  he  had  had  no  an- 
swer to  the  letter  of  thanks  he  had  sent  to  the  Professor 
almost  a  month  ago,  and  that  Kassian  had  taken  into 
Kufstein  to  post,  when  he  drove  off  after  his  wedding, 
with  Rosine  at  his  side.  But  Schroeder  was  a  busy  man, 
as  Edwards  well  knew.  Perhaps  if  he  wrote  again,  ex- 
plaining the  conditions  at  Thiersee  and  the  pressing  needs 
of  his  little  clinic, — perhaps  the  Schroeders  might  help. 
They  had  done  so  much  for  him  already.  And  had  not 
Father  Mathias  once  said  that  they  had  a  country  place 
somewhere  in  the  neighborhood? 

With  these  hopeful  plans  still  in  his  mind,  he  wroke 
next  morning  to  the  sound  of  the  children's  voices  as 
they  gathered  from  all  directions  around  the  steps  of 
the  schoolhouse.  He  was  humming  contentedly,  while 
shaving  in  front  of  his  tiny  distorting  mirror,  when  he 
heard  heavy  footsteps  outside  the  door.  It  opened,  and 
he  caught  Joncke 's  troubled  tones  as  he  spoke  over  his 
shoulder  to  Nani,  who  followed  at  his  heels. 

"No.     I '11  tell  him  myself. ' ' 

"  Kassian 's  dead,"  said  Joncke  with  embarrassed  di- 
rectness. ' '  The  wound  must  have  started  bleeding  again 
last  night.  They  found  him — this  morning — early." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      139 

Edwards  went  on  shaving.  He  wondered  why  he  did 
not  cut  himself .  But  he  didn't.  His  hand  was  perfectly 
steady. 

"You  mustn't  mind,"  Joncke  added,  as  Edwards  made 
no  answer.  "It's  no  great  loss.  I  never  did  want  him 
to  play  St.  Peter,  you  know." 

"You'll  be  late  for  school,"  was  all  that  Edwards 
said. 

Joncke  left  the  room  utterly  wretched. 

When  he  had  gone,  Edwards  dropped  into  a  chair 
and  looked  out  of  his  window  down  the  road  towards 
the  peaceful  little  lake.  He  might  as  well  say  good-by 
to  it  now. 

So  it  was  no  mere  loss  of  nerve  that  had  tormented 
him  last  night;  no  groundless  fear  that  had  lain  heavy 
in  his  subconsciousness  all  through  the  long  dark  hours. 
He  had  made  a  mistake. 

He  had  ligatured  the  vein.     Not  the  artery  at  all. 

The  compression  of  the  bandaging,  the  stitches  in  the 
closed  wound  had  held  back  the  stream  of  blood  for  a 
while.  Then  gradually  it  had  made  its  way  through 
the  few  clots  that  blocked  its  path,  through  the  lips  of 
the  wound  and  the  layers  of  aseptic  gauze.  He  could 
see  them  appearing  one  by  one,  the  tell-tale  spots  of 
bright  red,  spreading  slowly  on  the  whiteness  of  his 
bandages.  The  bandages  of  which  he  had  been  so  proud. 

If  he  had  only  remembered  to  take  off  the  ' '  Esmarch ' ' 
at  the  right  time.  Then  he  must  have  seen  the  spouting 
of  the  still  open  artery ;  must  have  realized  that  he  had 
tied  up  a  useless  vein.  If  he  had  only  remembered! 

This,  then,  would  be  the  end  of  his  practice. 

Everything  was  against  him.  Even  his  reputation  as 
a  Worker  of  Wonders  among  these  people.  He  had 
made  no  mistakes  before ;  all  things  had  prospered  under 
his  hand.  And  now  they  would  feel  and  resent  all  the 
more  this  blunder, — this  murderous  blunder.  Their  con- 
fidence in  him  was  at  an  end. 

But  that  was  not  the  worst.  Rosine  would  welcome 
the  chance  to  avenge  her  newly-wedded  husband.  He 
had  seen  and  heard  of  such  cases  only  too  often  at 


140      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Innsbruck,  in  the  clinics.  She  would  get  hold  of  some 
low-class  lawyer  and  file  a  "claim  for  compensation." 
Then  the  whole  thing  would  come  before  the  courts; 
his  practicing  without  proper  qualification  and  all  the 
rest  of  it.  They  might  go  still  further  back  into  his  past 
life,  might  dig  up  so  much  that  was  better  left  buried. 
They  were  like  hyenas,  these  zealous  petty  lawyers.  He 
knew  the  type.  A  nice  tale,  too,  for  the  local  news- 
papers. There  would  be  enough  scandal  there  to  break 
any  man.  And  it  would  mean  that  he  could  never  finish 
his  work  in  Austria;  never  get  a  place  in  one  of  the 
clinics;  never  even  go  up  for  his  examinations  and  take 
his  degree.  The  fine  imposed  by  the  courts  would  be 
enormous.  He  had  no  money.  And  prison  was  the  only 
alternative. 

And  Professor  Schroeder,  the  friend  who  had  trusted 
him,  would  not  he  too  be  dragged  into  the  very  midst 
of  this  discreditable  affair? 

The  best  thing  he  could  do  was  to  disappear. 

That  very  morning  he  would  pack  all  the  instru- 
ments the  Professor  had  lent  him;  he  would  entrust 
them  to  Joncke,  who  would  see  that  they  reached  their 
owner  somehow.  And  then  he  would  simply  walk  into 
Kufstein  and  take  the  train  for  Munich.  He  would 
have  to  leave  all  his  belongings  behind,  so  as  not  to 
excite  suspicion.  It  would  be  hard  to  part  from  his 
microscope.  In  order  to  pay  for  it  he  had  gone  about 
almost  in  rags  for  three  long  years.  And  his  books! 
But  that  was  just  his  luck. 

Abruptly  he  laughed. 

Why,  he  had  been  through  this  same  thing  once  be- 
fore. Almost  exactly.  The  same  sort  of  a  sudden  blow, 
unexpected,  unforeseen;  and  with  it  the  abrupt  ending 
of  a  part  of  his  life,  which  he  had  thought  would  never 
end.  This  strange  sense  of  unreality,  this  uncanny  gid- 
diness and  pain  over  his  heart, — he  had  felt  them  all  be- 
fore. And  the  same  thing  would  happen  here.  He 
would  walk  out  of  these  surroundings,  from  among  these 
friends,  quietly,  no  one  suspecting  that  he  was  speaking 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      141 

with  them  for  the  last  time.  And  he  would  never  see 
them  again, — never. 

Somewhere  out  in  the  world  he  would  wander  about 
until  he  chanced  on  some  attractive  town  or  village, 
where  he  was  an  outsider,  as  he  had  been  in  Inns- 
bruck; and  after  many  months,  perhaps  years  of  loneli- 
ness, he  would  make  for  himself  some  small  place  in  the 
hearts  of  this  stranger  people;  some  small  work  for 
his  hands  to  do,  some  small  happiness.  And  then — 
something  would  happen. 

And  it  would  be  all  to  do  again;  to  win  and  to  lose 
once  more. 

Would  it  not  be  better,  wiser,  to  make  an  end  now? 

His  life  in  Tyrol  was  finished.  Why  not  finish  it 
wholly,  once  for  all? 

Not  yet.  And  not  here.  For  the  sake  of  Schroeder, 
who  had  been  kind  to  him,  for  Joncke's  sake,  and  be- 
cause of  the  priest's  friendship.  He  must  let  no  one  sus- 
pect what  had  become  of  him. 

He  finished  dressing  and  left  the  room.  But  in  the 
hall-way  Toni  called  him. 

' '  Herr  Doktor,  aren  't  you  coming  soon  ?  The  coffee 's 
getting  all  cold." 

It  had  been  his  custom  of  late  to  take  his  morning 
coffee  with  the  two  patients  in  his  "Clinic."  Little 
Helena  and  Toni  always  waited  for  him,  and  he  had  a 
chance  to  observe  them  then  that  had  given  him  the 
first  idea  of  many  a  ruse  in  his  fight  with  disease.  But 
to-day  he  could  not  go  in.  He  called  through  the  open 
door,  not  trusting  himself  even  to  raise  his  eyes. 

"Drink  your  coffee  at  once,  both  of  you.  Toni,  you 
break  Helena's  bread  up  for  her.  I  must  go  down  to 
the  village." 

"But  my  'Bussi' — my  'Bussi.'  ' 

Helena's  shrill  little  voice  was  not  to  be  gainsaid. 
He  kissed  her;  gave  her  her  "Bussi,"  as  Tyrolese  chil- 
dren call  their  morning  kiss,  and  hurried  out  of  the 
house. 

The  evil  weather  of  the  previous  day  had  given  place 


142      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

to  unexpected  sunshine.  A  soft  haze  hung  over  every- 
thing, blurring  the  outlines  of  the  mountains.  And  it 
added  to  the  sense  of  unreality  that  Edwards  felt. 
Half-way  down  the  hill  he  stopped  for  an  instant,  his 
hand  pressed  to  his  heart. 

"That  would  be  the  simplest  way,"  he  muttered,  as 
the  pain  passed.  " But  no  such  luck.  Not  for  me." 

At  Kassian's  front  door  there  was  a  group  of  people 
whispering  with  their  heads  close  together.  As  they 
saw  Edwards  coming  down  the  road  they  made  way 
for  him.  The  men  took  off  their  hats;  the  women 
curtsied.  Edwards  did  not  dare  look  into  their  faces; 
he  feared  the  hostility  which  he  felt  must  be  lowering 
there. 

In  the  living-room,  with  their  backs  against  the  huge 
stove,  were  the  Biirgermeister  and  the  priest.  The  Bur- 
germeister  stepped  forward.  Edwards  heard  his  great 
hob-nailed  shoes  creak  on  the  flooring. 

"Well,  he  thought,  I  must  not  stand  here  like  a  beaten 
schoolboy.  I've  some  pride  still.  I  can  look  even  my 
enemies  in  the  face. 

As  he  lifted  his  head,  one  of  the  Biirgermeister 's  heavy 
hands  fell  on  his  shoulder ;  and  the  eyes  that  looked  down 
into  his  were  kindly,  were  full  of  the  sympathy  of  a  slow 
hard  man  moved  to  deep  feeling  at  last. 

"You  mustn't  take  it  so  to  heart,"  Edwards  heard 
him  say.  "Could  you — could  anyone  have  done  more? 
Didn't  I  watch  you  yesterday,  how  hard  you  worked? 
I  saw  the  sweat  run  down  into  your  eyes  myself."  He 
turned  to  the  priest.  ' ' Hochwiirden,  my  tongue's 
clumsy.  You  tell  him." 

"It's  only  this,"  said  the  priest's  deep  voice.  "We 
don't  want  you  to  worry.  You  did  your  best.  But  God 
overrules  even  your  science  and  skill  sometimes. ' ' 

Edwards  felt  the  room  begin  to  whirl  around  him. 
Then,  in  an  instant,  the  sense  of  unreality,  as  if  he 
himself  had  no  connection  with  all  that  was  going  on 
about  him,  fell  away;  he  was  once  more  among  his 
own  people,  the  people  who  trusted  and  cared  for  him 
still. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      143 

"And  Rosine?"  he  stammered. 

At  that  moment  she  appeared  on  the  threshold  of  the 
inner  room.  She  had  thrown  a  black  shawl  over  her 
shoulders :  her  eyes  were  red  and  swollen.  She  came  for- 
ward, bent  down  and  lifted  Edwards'  hand  to  her  lips. 

' '  We  must  thank  you,  me  and  my  Kassian.  God  rest 
him  in  His  Sacred  Heart." 

"But  for  what?  Rosine,  I'm  afraid  I— I— didn't " 

"Herr  Doktor,"  she  interposed,  drawing  the  black 
shawl  closer  about  her  shoulders,  "before  you  came  to 
Thiersee,  when  a  man  cut  open  his  wrist  as  Kassian  did 
(God  give  him  rest!),  he  bled  to  death  there  where  he 
lay,  drunk, — in  his  sins.  And  his  house,  his  farm,  he 
left  in  disorder.  It  couldn't  be  otherwise.  And  it  was 
hard  on  the  wife.  But  now — since  you've  been 
here " 

She  hesitated ;  then  went  on  more  rapidly — 

"Look,  Herr  Doktor.  "When  Kassian  was  brought 
back  to  me  I  put  him  to  bed.  He  was  weak.  But  his 
mind  was  clear.  Then  the  priest  came.  He  had  time, 
my  Kassian  did  (God  rest  him  soft!)  ;  time  to  make  his 
peace.  Didn't  he,  Hochwiirden?  And  then  he  bade  us 
get  paper  and  ink;  and  at  his  bidding  Hochwiirden  here 
drew  up  his  will.  He'd  been  putting  it  off.  We'd  been 
married  so  short  a  time.  Ah,  he  didn't  know  he  was  near 
his  end,  God  rest  him.  But  it  was  a  warning,  he  said, 
this  cutting  open  of  his  arm.  So  he  made  order  in  his 
household,  as  he'd  made  order  in  his  soul.  By-and-by 
the  Herr  Lehrer  came;  you  sent  him  for  the  rubber 
bandage.  That  had  pained  my  man  a  little.  And  when 
it  was  off,  he  said  he  felt  so  comfortable  that  he'd  try 
to  doze  a  while.  So  I  covered  him  up  to  the  chin  with 
the  best  coverlet.  He  was  soon  asleep.  Then  I  went  to 
bed  too.  What  with  the  worry  and  all  I  was  tired  out. 
And  this  morning — Oh  Mother  of  God — the  bed-clothes 
under  him  were  soaked  through  and  through  with  blood. 
My  own  nightgown  was  stained  with  it.  God  rest  him. 
He  did  drink.  But  he  was  a  good  man, — a  good  man. — 
And,  Herr  Doktor,  that's  what  you've  done  for  us — for 
Kassian  and  me.  Without  you  he'd  have  gone  with 


144      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

his  sins  thick  on  him,  and  'd  have  left  me,  perhaps 
not  mistress  here,  where  he'd  been  master  so  many 
years." 

Edwards'  knees  began  to  tremble;  he  let  himself  fall 
on  a  bench  near  the  stove. 

For  a  passing  moment  he  had  an  impulse  to  jump  up 
and  tell  these  people  the  truth.  But  he  caught  the 
priest's  watchful  eye  fixed  on  him,  and  behind  the  Bur- 
germeister's  back  Father  Mathias  laid  a  fat  finger  sig- 
nificantly on  his  lips. 

Well,  he  would  profit  then  by  chance.  It  would  be 
the  first  time  that  chance  had  stood  him  in  good  stead. 

"Will  you  come  in  and  see  him?"  said  Rosine.  "I'm 
trying  to  get  him  into  his  best  coat, — the  coat  he  was 
married  in  and  that  he  wouldn't  wear  on  our  honeymoon. 
'Twas  too  fine,  he  said." 

Edwards  followed  her.  And,  as  he  lifted  the  stiffen- 
ing arm  of  the  dead  man  to  thrust  it  into  the  sleeve  of 
black  broadcloth,  he  felt  something  crinkle  under  his 
hand  in  the  inside  pocket.  He  drew  out  two  letters, 
directed  in  his  own  handwriting,  to  Professor  and  to 
Frau  Professor  Schroeder  in  Innsbruck. 

An  hour  later,  when  he  got  back  to  the  schoolhouse, 
where  Joncke's  violin  was  leading  the  harsh  voices  of 
the  children  in  a  hymn  for  Pentecost,  Edwards  stopped 
at  the  door  of  his  ' '  Clinic ' '  and  went  in.  Little  Helena 
was  playing  with  a  rag  doll,  Toni  was  deep  in  a  book. 
Edwards  picked  up  the  child  and  kissed  her. 

"That  was  a  real  'Bussi,'  "  she  said. 


CHAPTER  XII 

EDWARDS  could  never  quite  decide  when  it  began,  his 
own  insidious  illness.  It  was  the  harder  to  recognize 
at  its  root  because  it  was  an  illness  of  the  mind,  com- 
bined with  the  reactive  results  of  his  over-sensitive  nerv- 
ous system;  almost  impossible  to  combat,  because  it 
was  upon  him  in  its  strength  before  he  had  understood 
what  was  happening.  And  then  it  was  too  late.  But 
three  things  stood  out  in  his  memory  always — the  mental 
shock  at  Kassian's  death,  Franzl's  ill-natured  gossip,  and 
— the  bottle  of  Scotch  whisky. 

The  whisky  was  an  offering  from  Rosine.  At  Kas- 
sian's funeral  Edwards  had  refused  a  glass  of  schnaps. 
Rosine  had  asked  him  what  he  did  drink;  and  in  a  mo- 
ment of  thoughtlessness  he  had  said,  "Scotch  whisky, 
when  I  can  get  it."  She  had,  as  he  thought,  feigned  a 
polite  interest,  had  even  made  him  write  down  the  Eng- 
lish words  for  her.  Then,  two  weeks  later,  the  Biirger- 
meister,  returning  from  a  business  journey  to  Innsbruck, 
had  left  at  the  schoolhouse  for  the  Herr  Doktor  a  bot- 
tle— "Mit  Gruss,  von  Rosine." 

Next  evening  the  Biirgermeister  called :  the  bottle  was 
opened  with  due  ceremony.  But  the  Biirgermeister 
found  it  ''poor  stuff."  When  he  had  gone  Edwards  lit 
his  pipe  and  mixed  himself  a  long  drink ;  a  mixture  which 
no  Tyroler  would  have  understood,  for  a  schnaps  must 
be  vile  indeed  if  one  must  dilute  it  with  water. 

And  that  same  night  Edwards  had  slept  as  he  had  not 
slept  for  weeks. 

He  had  slipped  lazily  into  bed  and  had  lain  there  on 
his  back — not  tossing  to  and  fro  as  his  custom  had  been 
of  late,  but  resting  at  perfect  peace  with  the  world,  his 
tired  body  dissolved  in  a  luxurious  sense  of  wellbeing. 
The  worries  of  the  past  day,  that  usually  presented  them- 

145 


146      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

selves  to  his  tired  brain  as  extravagantly  troublesome, 
the  planning  of  seemingly  impossible  tasks  for  the  day 
to  come,  or,  worst  of  all,  the  revival  of  old  memories  that 
flogged  him  with  whips  of  shame, — all  these  torments  had 
now  given  place  to  a  sense  of  contentment,  to  a  pleasant 
borderland  of  peace  where  he  could  think  of  the  past 
without  bitterness,  of  the  present  and  the  future  without 
anxiety. 

"When  he  woke  next  morning  his  mouth  had  an  evil 
taste,  and  he  passed  an  unpleasant  ten  minutes  until 
he  had  bathed.  Nor  did  his  cup  of  coffee,  taken  with 
Toni  and  little  Helena,  taste  quite  as  delicious  as  usual. 

For  two  whole  weeks  he  nursed  that  single  bottle  of 
whisky. 

"When  it  was  done  he  slept  badly  for  three  nights. 
He  tried  to  tell  himself  that  the  small  amount  of  alcohol 
he  had  been  taking  could  not  possibly  have  had  much 
effect  on  his  sleeping;  that  the  whole  thing  was  self- 
suggestion,  and  that  if  he  filled  the  empty  bottle  with 
yellow  water  and  could  believe  it  whisky,  he  would  sleep 
as  he  had  slept  before.  It  was  no  use.  The  fourth  night 
was  a  Sunday,  and  on  his  way  home  from  his  usual  sup- 
per at  the  "Widum"  he  had  passed  the  Drachen-Wirt's 
house.  Before  he  realized  what  he  was  doing,  he  found 
himself  tapping  at  the  front  window.  The  Drachen- 
"Wirt  himself  had  opened  it,  and  Edwards  had  heard  his 
own  voice  saying,  "Could  you  give  me  a  dram  of  good 
schnaps,  Herr  Wirt  ?  I  'm  a  bit  out  of  order  inside.  1 11 
take  it  with  me,  please." 

When  he  took  count  of  his  surroundings  once  more, 
he  was  walking  on  up  the  road,  his  hand  clasped  round 
the  tiny  glass  decanter  in  which  innkeepers  serve  "Ein 
Achtel  Schnaps"  to  their  better  customers.  He  stopped 
in  the  middle  of  the  road  and  poured  out  the  spirits  in 
the  mud. 

All  but  a  few  drops. 

Yet,  as  soon  as  he  was  safe  in  his  own  room,  he 
emptied  those  few  drops  into  a  glass,  washed  out  the 
decanter  with  water,  filled  up  the  glass  with  the  wash- 
ings, and  drank  the  mixture  off,  reproaching  himself  for 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      147 

having  been  so  idiotic  as  to  waste  the  good  stuff.  That 
night  he  slept  better.  Or  he  thought  so. 

Thereafter,  afraid  of  his  subconscious  self,  he  made  a 
rule  that  he  never  broke.  Once  every  week  Nani  fetched 
from  the  inn  "Em  Viertel  Schnaps";  and  Edwards 
amused  himself,  by  exercising — really  exercising — his 
self-control,  by  pouring  out  a  small  nightly  portion  of 
this  half-pint,  and  then  tipping  half  of  that  out  of  the 
window  before  he  drank  the  rest. 

But  schnaps  or  no  schnaps,  he  slept  worse  and  worse. 

There  were  other  signs  of  coming  trouble,  had  he  but 
given  thought  to  them.  But  he  was  too  taken  up  with 
others  to  spend  much  time  worrying  about  himself. 

Gradually  a  sort  of  iron-clad  ceremonial  grouped  itself 
around  certain  ordinary  actions.  The  number  ' '  Seven, ' ' 
for  instance,  began  to  dominate  him  everywhere.  When 
he  stepped  across  the  threshold  of  a  door,  he  took  care 
that  it  should  be  the  seventh  step  that  crossed  it.  If  by 
mistake  he  took  that  seventh  step  with  his  left  foot,  he 
would  go  back  furtively,  if  no  one  were  looking,  and 
cross  the  threshold  once  again,  right  foot  foremost. 

And  it  took  him  longer  and  longer  to  get  to  bed  at 
night. 

His  clothes,  for  instance,  had  to  be  lain  out  in  certain 
exact  positions.  If  his  socks  seemed  but  a  trifle  out 
of  line,  he  would  be  compelled  to  get  up  and  rearrange 
them.  His  cravat,  ready  for  the  morrow  under  his  turn- 
down collar,  had  to  have  the  two  protruding  ends  of  ex- 
actly the  same  length.  Otherwise,  he  could  not  get  into 
bed.  He  laughed  at  himself  at  first.  Then  he  tried  to 
free  himself.  But  he  only  partially  succeeded;  and 
where  one  series  of  ceremonial  acts  was  overcome,  another 
sprang  up  in  its  stead. 

There  was  that  foolish  superstition  about  his  bedroom 
candle. 

When  he  blew  it  out,  as  he  lay  in  bed,  he  had  to 
blow  seven  times.  The  seventh  blow  must  extinguish 
it.  If  the  sixth  one  did  so,  he  would  get  up,  relight 
the  candle,  and  go  through  the  whole  ceremony  again. 
Once  he  roused  his  will  and  extinguished  the  candle 


148      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

with  one  strong  puff.  As  a  result  he  lay  in  bed  wide 
awake,  obsessed  by  an  overpowering  idea  that  now  he 
must  die  in  the  night  because  he  had  disregarded  the 
usual  ceremonial.  It  was  as  if  this  strange  habitual 
rite  held  misfortune  at  bay.  Were  it  omitted,  Nemesis 
must  descend  suddenly  upon  him  in  some  form  or  other. 

After  half  an  hour  of  torment,  he  relit  the  candle, 
blew  it  out  with  the  seventh  puff,  and — slept  in  peace. 

Thus  in  his  own  person,  gradually,  subconsciously,  he 
passed  through  a  process  reflecting  the  mental  develop- 
ment of  the  entire  race.  He  began  to  attach  objective 
power  to  these  senseless  habits.  They  became  true  cere- 
monies ;  they  became  live  things ;  powerful,  in  some  mys- 
terious way,  to  ward  off  evil.  And  from  a  sense  of 
superstition  to  some  form  of  religion  is  but  a  short  step. 

In  every  Tyrolese  house — in  the  country,  at  least — 
there  hangs  on  the  wall,  beside  the  door  of  each  bed- 
room, a  little  white  porcelain  cup  of  holy-water.  It 
hangs  high  up :  to  dip  into  it,  one  must  lift  one 's  hand. 
And  because  one  can  never  see  what  is  in  it,  it  is  seldom, 
if  ever,  washed  out,  but  is  filled  and  refilled  until  the 
water  in  it  is  thick  with  dust  and  dirt  and  all  unclean- 
ness. 

There  was,  of  course,  such  a  cup  on  the  wall  by 
Edwards'  door.  When  he  first  came,  he  had  tipped 
out  the  water  and  washed  the  cup  himself.  Nani  had 
religiously  refilled  it.  Of  late  he  had  acquired  a  new 
habit  in  connection  with  it — or  rather,  he  had  re-ac- 
quired a  habit  of  his  childhood.  One  night,  when  he 
had  been  sleeping  badly  for  weeks,  he  had  dipped  his 
fingers  in  the  holy-water  and  had  sprinkled  his  bed  with 
it.  He  slept  better  that  night — he  thought.  And  from 
that  time  on  he  could  not — physically  could  not — get 
into  bed  without  first  performing  this  lustral  rite. 

He  sought  and  found  excuses.  He  told  himself  that 
he  did  not  believe  in  the  efficacy  of  the  holy- water; 
that  he  was  merely  repeating  a  symbolical  act,  a  sign  of 
cleanness  of  body  and  mind;  an  ancient  rite — Roman, 
Buddhistic,  too — common  to  all  religions.  He  filled  up 
the  holy-water  cup  with  ordinary  water  from  his  wash- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      149 

pitcher;  but  he  sprinkled  his  bed  with  it  all  the  same. 
He  could  not  have  slept  else. 

Curiously  enough  these  "fixed  ideas"  were  the  prod- 
ucts of  darkness.  When  he  woke  in  the  morning,  they 
were  gone.  Then  he  was  as  a  man  released  from  bond- 
age. But  at  night,  as  soon  as  bedtime  drew  near,  the 
old  habit  of  these  senseless  ceremonies  resumed  its  sway, 
and  if  he  wished  to  rest  well  he  must  go  through  with 
them  all. 

Perhaps  the  concentration  of  his  mind  on  such  petty 
acts  during  the  evening  hours,  at  supper  and  afterwards, 
when  he  and  Joncke  were  often  alone  together,  kept 
him  from  noticing  a  change  in  the  schoolmaster.  Or 
if  he  felt  the  change,  it  was  not  unpleasantly.  For  of 
late  Joncke  had  come  somewhat  out  of  himself.  He 
talked  more.  But  he  talked  continually  of  Edwards :  of 
what  he  had  done  for  this  person  or  that;  of  what  a 
wonderful  thing  it  was  for  Thiersee  anyhow  to  have 
such  a  man  in  their  midst  even  for  a  time;  and  of 
how  wickedly  ungrateful  people  were  for  all  these  bene- 
fits. His  compliments  were  fulsome.  A  keener  observer 
than  Edwards  would  have  realized  that  some  hostile  force 
was  impinging  on  Joncke 's  devotion  to  his  companion, 
and  by  its  adverse  action  was  hypertrophying  his  un- 
conscious need  of  giving  words  to  the  persistence  of  his 
own  fidelity. 

April  was  over,  and  Edwards'  last  balance-sheet  had 
caused  him  much  worry.  Not  yet  had  he  been  able  to 
finish  his  letter  of  explanations  to  Professor  Schroeder, 
for  together  with  his  new  abnormal  habits  had  come  a 
tendency  to  procrastinate,  that  he  yielded  to  more  and 
more.  But  the  sight  of  this  last  balance-sheet  deter- 
mined him,  and  he  was  half-way  through  a  letter  en- 
closing the  strayed  ones  found  in  Kassian's  pocket, 
when  a  message  came  from  Gipfl-Paul,  the  shoemaker, 
that  his  wife  was  ill  again. 

Edwards  set  off  at  once.  Gipfl-Paul  lived  only  a 
stone's  throw  from  the  schoolhouse,  in  a  dusty  tumble- 
down cottage,  the  oldest  as  well  as  the  most  pictur- 
esque in  the  village.  He  was  a  little  man,  mostly  beard, 


150      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

and,  because  of  his  beard,  chosen  to  take  Kassian  's  place 
in  the  Play  as  St.  Peter.  The  community  had  but  one 
grudge  against  him:  he  was  not  Tyrolese  born,  but  had 
come  from  the  Salzkammergut  years  before,  and  had 
cobbled  for  the  villagers  ever  since.  There  was  scarcely 
enough  cobbling  in  Thiersee  to  keep  a  single  man,  but 
somehow  or  other  Gipfl-Paul  managed  to  support  a  large 
family. 

Edwards  had  heard  that  the  occasional  tourists — 
mostly  Germans  from  the  north — who  passed  through 
Thiersee  on  summer  walking  tours,  would  almost  al- 
ways stop  at  Gipfl's  house;  for  local  tradition  claimed 
(indeed  Gipfl  said  the  red  Guide-Books  claimed  it  too) 
that  the  great  Andreas  Hofer  had  once  made  his  head- 
quarters there  during  the  last  hopeless  months  of  his 
struggle  against  the  overpowering  French,  when,  dis- 
avowed by  his  own  sovereign,  distrusted  by  the  well-to- 
do,  and  deserted  by  all  but  his  little  band  of  fanatics, 
he  was  still  fighting  for  the  God,  the  Kaiser,  and  the 
Fatherland,  who  had  left  him  in  the  lurch — to  die. 

Most  houses  in  Tyrol,  in  which  Andreas  Hofer  un- 
doubtedly did  stay,  have  nothing  of  the  picturesque 
about  them:  they  have  been  rebuilt  or  freshly  painted; 
they  do  not  appeal — to  the  tourist.  But  Gipfl's  house 
did  appeal.  Perhaps  that  was  one  reason  why  he  never 
rebuilt,  or  painted,  or  even  washed. 

Edwards  found  the  Gipfl-Marie  propped  up  in  bed 
and  fighting  for  breath.  Her  broad  chest  was  heaving, 
all  the  accessory  muscles  working  at  their  highest  ten- 
sion to  bring  her  the  air  that  she  was  gasping  for. 
Bronchial  Asthma.  Edwards  knew  it  well  enough. 
Since  he  had  been  at  Thiersee  the  woman  had  had  three 
of  these  bad  attacks,  and  he  had  exhausted  all  his  knowl- 
edge to  help  her,  without  much  success.  But  to-day  he 
carried  with  him  a  new  weapon — Adrenalin.  He  had 
once  seen  it  used  in  the  clinic.  And  at  his  request  one 
of  his  friends  in  Innsbruck  had  sent  him  a  small  amount 
in  tabloids. 

Marie's  husband  was  sitting  in  a  dim  dusty  corner 
of  the  room,  and,  as  Edwards  came  in,  he  put  some- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      151 

thing  hastily  aside.  He  seemed  more  than  usually  sulky, 
but  Edwards  did  not  mind. 

"I've  got  some  new  medicine  for  you,  Marie,"  he 
said.  "I  don't  know  whether  it  will  cure  you.  But 
I'm  pretty  sure  it  will  put  a  quick  stop  to  your  bad 
breathing.  I  suppose  you  haven't  slept  all  night." 

The  woman  shook  her  head.  In  spite  of  her  big 
strong  body,  the  asthma  made  her  a  helpless  invalid 
for  a  good  part  of  every  year.  Edwards  sent  Gipfl  off 
for  a  glass  of  fresh  water.  Here  in  the  country  one 
could  not  afford  the  luxury  of  ' '  aqua  distillata. ' '  While 
Gipfl  was  gone  he  sat  down  on  the  cobbler's  bench; 
there  were  no  other  chairs;  and  his  eyes  happened  to 
rest  on  the  thing  that  Gipfl  had  been  bending  over  as 
he  came  in. 

It  was  one  of  those  wide  Tyrolese  leather  belts,  of 
a  girth  that  one  seldom  sees  now,  except  in  pictures 
of  the  men  who  fought  with  Andreas  Hofer  in  1809. 
It  was  very  dusty,  the  leather  dry  as  if  with  age.  And 
in  the  front  of  the  belt,  as  the  custom  still  is  in  Tyrol, 
were  embroidered  in  faded  letters  the  initials  of  its 
owner's  name.  Edwards  was  trying  to  decipher  these 
when  Gipfl  returned.  Mechanically  he  dissolved  his 
tabloid  of  Adrenalin  and  injected  the  solution  into 
Marie 's  sun-browned  arm ;  but  his  thoughts  were  on  that 
old  belt,  and  before  Gipfl  had  time  to  slip  away  he  had 
turned  and  taken  from  his  hands  the  broad  band  of 
leather  which  the  cobbler  seemed  so  anxious  to  conceal. 

"Where  did  you  get  that?"  Edwards  demanded. 

"  'Tisn't  nothing  but  an  old  belt.  Not  worth  ten 
kreutzer.  I  was  going  to  use  the  leather  for  patches. 
I  found  it  this  morning  stuck  away  behind  that  beam 
yonder,  all  covered  with  cobwebs." 

Edwards  seized  it  and  carried  it  to  the  light.  His 
first  glance  then  had  not  deceived  him.  There  were 
the  embroidered  initials,  A.  H.  Gipfl  had  found  it 
tucked  away  in  some  corner  where  it  had  lain  for  years 
— a  hundred  years.  And  local  tradition,  even  the  guide- 
books, said  that  in  this  very  house — 

A  belt, — a  real  belt  once  worn  by  Andreas  Hofer ! 


152      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

There  was  only  one  such  in  existence.  In  the  Inns- 
bruck Museum.  And  there  were  a  hundred  collectors 
of  Tyroliana  who  would  give  almost  anything  in  reason 
for  another.  What  they  would  give  would  put  another 
bed,  perhaps  two  beds,  in  his  little  Clinic  at  the  school- 
house;  would  keep  it  going  for  months;  would  make 
his  begging  letter  to  Professor  Schroeder  unnecessary 
after  all. 

For  an  instant  he  was  tempted  to  say  nothing  to 
Gipfl,  merely  to  buy  the  belt  as  a  bit  of  old  leather  and 
pocket  the  results  of  its  sale.  But  the  poverty  of  the 
room  in  which  he  stood  gave  him  pause.  Gipfl  would 
need  the  money.  They  would  halve  the  profits  between 
them.  So,  his  voice  trembling  with  excitement,  he  ex- 
plained to  Gipfl  the  nature  and  value  of  his  find. 

"What's  that  you  say!"  exclaimed  Gipfl,  without 
showing  much  enthusiasm.  ' '  Belonged  to  Andra  Hof er ! 
There  be  many  Andra  Hofers  and  Hausers  and 
Holtzmanns  in  Tyrol.  Maybe  'tisn't  even  an  old  belt. 
Do  you  know  aught  of  leather  work  ?  No. — Well,  I  can 't 
say  myself.  It  might  be.  And  again  it  might  not. ' ' 

Edwards  explained  his  plan.  He  would  take  the  belt 
to  Innsbruck,  and  would  divide  with  Gipfl  what  he  could 
get  for  it.  He  knew  slightly  the  Curator  of  the  National 
Museum:  he  would  submit  the  belt  to  him. 

To  his  surprise  Gipfl  did  not  seem  at  all  pleased. 

"Nay,  nay,"  he  said.  "I'll  not  be  letting  the  belt  out 
of  my  sight.  If  them  sly  city-people  get  hold  of  it, 
111  never  see  it  again.  And  there's  plenty  of  tourists 
coming  along  now  who'll  buy  the  thing  if  it's  worth 
buying.  How  do  I  know  that  it  belonged  to  Andra 
Hof  er  ?  I  'm  a  poor  man ;  but  if  the  Herr  Doktor  wants 
to  buy  it  himself  now,  and  take  the  risk  of  its  being 
what  he  thinks,  why,  that's  different.  Perhaps  then 
I  might " 

"Herr  Doktor,"  said  Marie's  voice  from  behind  Gipfl, 
"Herr  Doktor,  I  can  breathe — breathe." 

In  the  heat  of  his  discussion  Edwards  had  forgotten 
his  patient.  Now,  as  he  bent  over  the  bed,  it  seemed 
almost  miraculous,  this  sudden  loosening  of  the  bron- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      153 

chial  cramp.  She  was  taking  full  deep  breaths ;  her  face 
was  healthily  suffused;  her  heaving  shoulders  were  at 
rest. 

"Vergelt's  Gott,  Herr  Doktor, "  she  added,  smiling. 
"If  my  man  will  take  his  cobbling  out  into  the  sun 
where  it  won't  disturb  me,  I  think  I  could  sleep  now. 
What 's  that  you  've  got  there  ?  Not  a  belt  ? ' ' 

She  clung  to  his  sleeve  and  tried  to  draw  his  face  down 
to  her  own.  But  Gipfl  pushed  in  between  them. 

"We'd  better  talk  outside,"  he  whispered,  as  he  al- 
most forced  Edwards  out  of  the  room.  "The  poor  wife 
don't  know  what  she's  a-saying.  She's  that  feverish. 
But  she  ain't  making  such  a  nasty  noise  with  her  breath- 
ing. I'll  say  that  for  your  needle-prick  medicine. 
.We'll  leave  her  to  go  to  sleep." 

Outside  the  house  they  bargained.  And  finally  Ed- 
wards agreed  to  part  with  the  last  fifty  crowns  that  he 
possessed.  As  Gipfl  said:  "For  a  rich  man  like  you 
fifty  crowns  ain't  much  to  risk.  If  the  belt  was  Andra 
Hof er  's  you  '11  get  five  hundred  for  it  easy.  Not  that  I  'm 
saying  it  was.  Though  I've  looked  at  the  one  in  the 
Innsbruck  Museum  many  a  time,  and  this  old  belt  does 
look  like  the  belt  there,  it  do.  So  that's  my  price. 
Fifty  crowns  now.  And  if  the  thing  turns  out  genuine 
you're  to  give  me  one  hundred  crowns  more.  Why,  you 
might  get  eight  hundred.  Even  a  thousand.  I'm  sure 
I  'm  making  you  a  very  fair  offer. ' ' 

It  did  seem  a  fair  offer,  too.  Edwards  held  out  his 
hand. 

"Agreed,"  he  said.  "Bring  the  belt  to  the  school- 
house  this  evening,  and  you  shall  have  your  fifty  crowns. 
I  don't  carry  so  much  money  with  me." 

It  seemed  to  disappoint  Gipfl  that  the  transaction 
could  not  be  completed  at  once.  But  he  resigned  him- 
self to  the  inevitable,  and  bade  Edwards  a  surly  good- 

ky. 

Edwards  had  gone  only  a  few  steps  from  the  house 
when  he  remembered  that  in  his  haste  he  had  left  his 
hypodermic  syringe  on  the  table  by  Marie's  bed.  He 
turned  back. 


154      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

As  he  stepped  once  more  into  the  shadow  of  the  cob- 
bler's porch  he  heard  high  voices;  he  could  not  help 
but  hear. 

"Ach,  was!"  Gipfl  was  saying,  his  voice  shaking  with 
rage.  "Could  you  earn  fifty  crowns  as  easily?  And 
was  it  my  fault  that  he  got  hold  of  the  belt  ?  You  know 
well  enough  that  I  make  them  for  the  summer  tourists. 
For  the  Prussians  and  the  fool  English. ' ' 

Marie's  voice,  still  weak  from  her  asthma,  inter- 
rupted— 

"Do  you  think  he  has  fifty  crowns  to  throw  away? 
Look  at  his  clothes.  You  shall  not  cheat  him  as  if  he 
were  an  accursed  Prussian." 

' '  Why  not  ?  He  doesn  't  belong  here  in  Tyrol.  Some 
day  he'll  disappear  as  suddenly  as  he  came. — 'Ein  Zug- 
ereister!'  ! 

Edwards  heard  the  thud  of  Marie's  bare  feet  on  the 
floor  as  she  jumped  out  of  bed. 

"What?  Say  that  again!  A  'Zugereister'  is  he? 
And  he  speaks  our  tongue,  and  loves  our  people,  and 
goes  to  Sunday  supper  at  the  'Widum,'  and — and  he's 
Pontius  Pilate  in  the  Play.  He  a  '  Zugereister '  ?  Then 
so  was  the  Savior  in  Galilee." 

Gipfl 's  tone  rose  in  angry  answer;  he  was  evidently 
trying  to  force  his  wife  back  into  bed. 

"Hold  your  noise,  Gipfl-Marie.  If  you  aren't  quiet 
you'll  get  another  fit  of  bad  breathing,  and  it  makes 
me  nervous  to  have  to  sit  here  and  hear  you  wheeze. 
And  mind  your  own  business.  If  I  want  to  take  fifty 
crowns  from  this — from  the  Herr  Doktor,  why  not? 
I'll  wager  he's  had  his  hand  in  other  people's  pockets 
oftener  than  I  have.  Didn't  you  hear  what  the  young 
fellows  at  the  'Drachen'  have  been  saying  about  him? 
I  thought  there  was  something  wrong  with  him  from 
the  first.  Why  should  a  man  like  him  bury  himself  in 
Thiersee?  'So  ein  feiner  Herr?'  ' 

"It's  all  a  dirty  lie.    As  for  that  idiot  Franzl 

She  began  to  cough.  Edwards  heard  the  bed  creak 
as  she  dropped  back  among  the  pillows. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      155 

" God  will  punish  him.  Has  he  no  eyes?  Have 

you  none?  Could  a  bad  man  do  what  he  does,  the 
Herr  Doktor?  Do  I  not  know  how  I  have  used  a  thou- 
sand things,  tormented  myself  and  you,  trying  to  get 
well  when  my  bad  breathing  came.  To  the  old  Herr 
Benefiziat  I  went  on  my  knees.  But  the  pine-needles 
that  he  told  me  to  burn  and  snuff  in, — the  holy-water 
he  gave  me  to  drink,  the  long  prayers,  did  they  help 
much?  And  now  while  I  am  lying  here  in  torment, 
and  you,  precious  soul,  made  nervous  by  my  wheezing, 
in  he  comes  like  light  in  a  dark  room.  And  he  makes 
new  medicine  for  me  with  a  piece  of  white  powder. 
Not  even  does  he  trouble  me  to  swallow  it.  He  pricks 
my  skin  with  it.  And  in  a  few  moments  I  have  air, — I 
can  breathe.  May  God  reward  him." 

"Ach,  you  women  are  all  in  love  with  him.  You'd 
all  like  to " 

A  heavy  shoe  came  sailing  through  the  open  door  and 
almost  knocked  Edwards'  hat  from  his  head. 

' '  Out  of  my  sight, ' '  said  the  trembling  voice  of  Gipfl- 
Marie,  "or,  weak  as  I  am,  I'll  get  up  for  the  broom- 
stick.— You, — you  hoary  old  liar,  you! — As  if  Andra 
Hofer  ever  put  a  foot  in  this  house. — You  and  your 
belts !  I  take  shame  to  myself  that  a  native-born  woman 
like  me, — a  Tyrolerin, — must  house  together  with  such 
as  you. — You — you  '  Zugereister ! '  ' 

Gipfl  retreated,  muttering  in  his  beard  and  dragging 
his  cobbling  bench  after  him.  On  the  threshold  he 
found  himself  face  to  face  with  Edwards. 

"I  want  my  instruments,"  Edwards  explained.  "I 
left  them  on  your  table." 

"When  he  came  out  of  the  house  again,  after  straighten- 
ing out  Marie's  disordered  bed  and  making  her  promise 
to  try  and  sleep  at  once,  he  stopped  for  a  minute  by 
Gipfl 's  side.  The  cobbler  was  bent  double  over  his  work, 
hammering  for  dear  life  at  the  sole  of  a  huge  nailed 
shoe. 

"I  heard  what  your  wife  said  to  you  just  now,"  Ed- 
wards began.  "But  that  makes  no  difference.  No  one 


156      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

need  ever  know  except  us  three.  Send  up  the  belt  and 
you  shall  have  your  fifty  crowns.  I  promised  them 
to  you,  and  I  try  never  to  break  my  word." 

He  left  Gipfl  staring  stupidly  after  him,  and  walked 
on  down  the  road,  turning  to  the  right  towards  the 
lake.  He  had  no  heart  to  go  home  now.  He  had 
thrown  away  his  last  fifty  crowns  for  the  sake  of  pro- 
ducing a  foolish  theatrical  effect.  It  would  have  no 
result:  Gipfl  would  only  think  him  an  idiot.  And  that 
was  exactly  what  he  was. 

Why  had  he  done  it? 

He  knew  the  answer  to  that  question  well  enough. 

He  had  reacted  instinctively  against  another's  dis- 
honesty by  the  doing  of  what  seemed  an  honorable  action 
as  a  protest  against  the  scandalous  tales  that  were  evi- 
dently afloat  in  the  parish.  What  could  they  be? 
Marie  had  mentioned  Franzl's  name.  But  how  could  he 
have  any  knowledge  of — of 

From  out  of  the  past,  from  its  hiding-place  in  a  distant 
land,  it  seemed  to  Edwards  as  if  some  many-armed  mon- 
ster were  reaching  out  at  him ;  some  evil  demon  whom  he 
had  thought  to  escape  by  flight,  whom  he  had  sup- 
posed gradually  growing  old,  and  so  by  age  reft  of  his 
power  to  harm.  And  now  it  appeared  that  the  evil,  or 
the  memory  of  it,  was  not  dead  at  all.  It  had  stretched 
out  its  long  hands  across  thousands  of  miles,  had  pursed 
up  its  cruel  lips,  and  had  whispered  to  some  one,  in  this 
far-off  valley,  a  story, — some  story,  distorted  no  doubt, 
perhaps  quite  untrue,  but  therefore  all  the  more  likely 
of  belief;  some  echo  of  acts  done  long  ago. 

A  whole  complex  of  memories  rose  in  Edwards'  mind, 
together  with  the  picture  of  that  street  corner  in  a 
provincial  American  town, — together  with  that  outlook 
on  the  wooded  valley  where  the  chapel  tower  of  his  old 
school  rose  above  the  trees;  memories  that  clothed  him 
in  a  sudden  flaming  garment  of  impotent  shame,  that 
stood  between  him  and  the  places  that  he  still  called 
home. 

How  had  they  come  here  to  this  guarded  valley? 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      157 

And  who  had  brought  them  ?  Was  there  no  escape  any- 
where from  these  things? 

He  passed  through  the  quiet  village.  The  place  was 
absolutely  deserted  at  this  hour;  the  men  in  the  fields, 
the  children  at  school,  the  women  busy  at  their  house- 
work. At  the  entrance  to  the  churchyard  he  paused, 
and  then  walked  in  among  the  graves. 

Here  lay  little  Helena's  mother.  He  remembered  to 
have  heard  some  story  or  other  about  her.  Her  husband 
had  once  surprised  her  with  the Ah,  he  remem- 
bered the  tale  now.  He  had  often  laughed  at  it.  It  had 
quite  a  Boccaccio-like  flavor.  Doubtless  it  was  absolutely 
untrue. 

And  over  there  lay  Franzl's  great-uncle,  a  former 
Biirgermeister.  There  was  a  story  about  him  too.  He 
had  appropriated  money  entrusted  to  him,  or  something 
of  the  kind.  A  lie  also,  no  doubt. 

Even  the  dead  had  no  rest:  no  rest  from  the  evil 
tongues  that  perpetuated  false  traditions  of  their  past 
misdeeds. 

No,  there  was  no  freedom  in  death  from  the  coil  of 
circumstance,  from  the  interwoven  net  of  cause  and 
effect. 

He  expanded  his  chest,  and  drew  a  deep  breath  of 
the  soft  fragrant  mountain  air. 

And  then  he  wondered  how  it  was  with  the  various 
cells  that  line  the  infmitesimally  tiny  alveoles  of  the 
lungs, — the  cells  that  come  into  direct  contact  with 
the  air.  They  were  not  all  of  the  same  size,  nor  do  their 
nuclei  all  look  exactly  alike.  Probably  some  let  the 
air  through  into  the  minute  blood-vessels  that  twine 
them  round  more  easily  than  others;  others  that  are 
slightly  torpid  perhaps,  or  clogged;  not  quite  so  func- 
tionally perfect  as  the  remaining  cells  of  their  immediate 
environment.  Did  the  many  cells  that  were  alike  blame 
the  few  others  that  could  not  work  exactly  as  they  did? 
Did  they  not  realize  that  there  could  be  no  blame  at- 
taching to  these  few  ?  that  they  were  what  they  were  be- 
cause of  a  thousand  complicated  chemical  processes  that 


158      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

took  place  in  far-off  regions  of  the  body,  where  there 
were  no  lung-cells  at  all,  and  of  whose  existence  a  lung- 
cell,  as  such,  could  not  have  even  the  faintest  concep- 
tion? 

Or  suppose  the  lung  was  tuberculous.  Suppose  that 
almost  all  the  cells  around  some  alveole  were  poisoned 
and  useless.  Would  this  majority  set  itself  up  in  judg- 
ment upon  the  one  or  two  healthy  cells  that  still  acted 
normally?  No  doubt  they  might.  And  they  would  be 
acting  as  ridiculously  as  would  the  few  normal  cells, 
should  they  begin  to  condemn  their  tuberculous  neigh- 
bors, demanding  from  them  a  mode  of  life  that  they 
were  not  capable  of  leading,  because  they  were  not 
what  they  were  through  their  own  choice,  but  as  the 
inevitable  result  of  forces  acting  not  only  in  this 
macrocosm  called  the  body,  of  whose  various  other  com- 
plicated regions  and  their  mutually  interacting  centers 
the  lung-cell  could  have  no  understanding,  but  in 
spheres  even  more  remote  still, — forces  that  impinged 
on  the  entity  of  the  body  from  the  immeasurably  greater 
sphere  of  being  without, — forces  set  at  such  immense 
distances  from  the  single  tiny  tuberculous  lung-cell  that 
they  were  unthinkable,  from  the  lung-cell's  point  of 
view,  be  the  lung-cell  never  so  clever. 

All  true  enough,  perhaps.  But  it  did  not  help  him 
much.  And  he  needed  help. 

The  door  leading  into  the  church  was  open.  As  Ed- 
wards passed  from  the  warm  summer  sun  into  the  dim 
interior,  the  damp  cold  of  the  place  seemed  to  rise  like 
a  fog  from  the  ground  and  crawl  gradually  up  his 
limbs,  until  it  had  invaded  his  entire  body.  The  figure 
of  the  Ascended  Christ  no  longer  dangled  from  the 
center  of  the  roof.  It  stood  in  its  old  place,  behind 
the  iron  bars,  clothed  in  its  purple  robe  and  thorny 
crown. 

It  was  hideous.  So  was  the  entire  church.  Hid- 
eous. 

"When  it  was  full,  of  a  Sunday,  it  had  seemed  only 
homely, — like  the  lined  unlovely  face  of  some  great- 
hearted mother. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      159 

He  turned  to  go.  What  had  he  come  here  for  any- 
way? 

His  eye  caught  the  twinkling  flame  of  the  "Ewige 
Lampe"  before  the  altar. 

He  had  come  here  to  look  for  something  that  might 
make  life  less  cruel,  less  unreasonable;  that  might  lend 
it  some  moments  of  peace,  some  sense  of  final  unity. 

He  had  come  here  to  seek — God. 

And  he  found  the  tawdry  thorn-crowned  image,  and 
this  wavering  uncertain  point  of  flame. 

The  image  was  a  dead  thing.  The  facts,  dogmas, 
ideals  that  it  represented,  however  crudely,  were  dead 
to  him  too. 

In  one  of  the  seats  some  worshiper  had  left  his 
prayer-book.  Edwards  picked  it  up.  It  fell  open  at 
the  Order  and  Canon  of  the  Mass:  the  Latin  on  one 
side,  the  heavily-printed  German  on  the  other  side  of 
the  well-thumbed  page.  And  there  lay  the  words  that, 
as  a  boy,  had  so  often  thrilled  his  inmost  being — 

ET  IDEO  CUM  ANGELIS  ET  ARCHANGELIS,  CUM  THRONIS 
ET  DOMINATIONIBUS,  CUMQUE  OMNI  MILITIA 
COELESTIS  EXERCITUS. 

"All  the  army  of  the  Heavenly  Host."  How  real 
they  had  been  to  him  then! 

And  on  the  next  page,  in  still  heavier  type,  were 
those  other  words.  Words  spoken  everywhere  and  in 
a  never-ending  whisper  of  awe,  all  over  the  whole  world. 
Words  that  had  absorbed  so  much  concentrated  faith 
and  devotion  through  hundreds  of  years  that  they  must 
have  power  still — 

QUI  PRIDIE  QUAM  PATERETUR,  ACCEPIT  PANEM.  .  .  . 
.  .  .  HOC  EST  CORPUS  MEUM.  .  .  . 

He  repeated  them  slowly,  hesitatingly,  like  a  fool- 
hardy "famulus"  who  opens  the  book  of  his  master, 
the  magician,  and  dares  to  read  some  mighty  charm 
aloud. 

But  they  were  dead,  the  words. 

How  often  in  his  youth  had  he  bowed,  not  only  his 


160      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

knees,  but  his  whole  soul  and  body,  in  an  agony  of 
devotion  before  the  mystery  of  the  Passion,  enacted 
anew  on  the  altar  before  his  eyes! 

And  now  it  was  all  dead.  Dead  as  that  wooden  image 
behind  the  iron  bars,  with  its  crown  of  thorns  and 
tattered  purple  robe. 

There  was  no  help  here. 

Had  he  but  known  it,  there  never  had  been  help  here 
for  him.  But  when  he  was  a  boy,  something  within 
him  had  cried  out  for  expression,  and  had  found  a 
temporary  outlet  in  these  acts  of  worship,  in  all  these 
complicated  forms  of  word  and  sacramental  rite,  which 
were  empty  of  all  meaning  now, — dead  beyond  all  hope 
of  resurrection. 

Dead dead ! 

As  he  turned  to  go,  he  felt  a  hand  on  his  shoulder. 
The  parish  priest  was  standing  at  his  elbow. 

"You've  forgotten  the  'Ewige  Lampe,'  "  he  said  softly. 
"That  burns;  that  is  consumed;  changes  its  form;  be- 
comes invisible.  But  it  does  not  cease  to  exist. 

That's  life. A  symbol,  if  you  please.  But  a  living 

symbol.  It's  not  all  death  here. Come  in  and  have 

a  chat  with  me.  It's  a  bad  habit  you've  grown  into 
lately  of  talking  aloud  to  yourself." 

Edwards  had  no  desire  for  company  just  then,  but 
his  will  seemed  broken  for  the  moment.  He  let  the 
priest  lead  him  where  he  wished.  It  was  at  least  a 
comfort  that  the  kind-hearted,  fat  little  man  did  not 
talk  much  to-day.  He  found  Edwards  a  comfortable 
chair  in  his  study,  gave  him  tobacco  for  his  pipe,  and 
then  disappeared  into  the  next  room,  leaving  the  door 
between  wide  open. 

Then,  as  Edwards  sat  there,  utterly  passive,  he  heard 
the  soft  vibrating  notes  of  a  'cello.  They  floated  in 
from  the  room  beyond,  as  if  from  an  enchanted  dis- 
tance. 

It  was  no  definite  melody  that  reached  him.  There 
were  old  folk-songs,  mingled  with  bits  of  simple  har- 
monies, like  the  memories  of  a  half-forgotten  childhood. 
Now  and  then  the  player  would  stop  for  a  moment,  as 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      161 

if  he  expected  some  word  from  his  listener  in  the  other 
room. 

Edwards  did  not  speak.  He  was  conscious  of  a  feel- 
ing of  surprise  that  the  priest  should  play  the  'cello, 
not  as  a  mere  musician,  but  as  a  man  who  found  in  his 
music  some  outlet  for  the  conflicts  of  his  hidden  soul. 
Yet  that  was  all.  No  other  thoughts  came  to  him;  the 
melody  did  not  touch  him. 

He  had  loved  music  once.    Was  that  dead  too? 

The  priest  was  playing  the  ancient  chant  of  the  Pref- 
ace— 

"Therefore  with  angels  and  archangels " 

He  finished  it,  and  stopped  again.  Still  Edwards 
made  no  sign.  Nevertheless,  the  music  pleased  him. 
He  was  willing  to  listen  as  long  as  the  priest  cared  to 
play. 

In  the  next  room  the  priest  gave  a  little  sigh  of  dis- 
appointment. Then  he  bent  over  his  instrument  once 
again. 

He  began  the  melody  of  a  simple  hymn.  But  he 
had  scarcely  reached  the  middle  of  the  first  verse,  when 
Edwards  appeared  suddenly  in  the  open  door. 

"Stop,"  he  said,  and  his  voice  was  harsh  with  emo- 
tion. "You  mustn't  play  that.  I  can't  bear  it." 

The  priest  looked  up  and  motioned  to  a  chair  at  his 
side. 

"You  must  hear  it,"  he  said,  his  face  aglow  with 
satisfaction.  Then  he  added  in  English,  "So  you  have 
deceived  me.  You  are  not  a  Catholic." 

Edwards  shrugged  his  shoulders.  His  collar  seemed 
to  have  grown  too  tight;  he  loosened  it  with  his  fore- 
finger. 

"My  mother — my  mother  was  a  Protestant,"  he  said. 
"She  never  conformed.  But  we  children  were  brought 
up  in  the  Church.  Not  that  father  was  a  very  zealous 
Catholic.  Until  we  were  sent  away  to  school,  he  let  her 
teach  us  our  prayers.  She — we " 

He  swallowed,  then  cleared  his  throat. 

' '  She  used  to  sing  hymns  with  us  on  Sunday  evenings. 


162      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"We  stood  round  her  at  the  piano.  And  the  last  hymn 

we  sang  was  always — was  always How  is  it  that  you, 

play  English  Protestant  hymns,  I'd  like  to  know." 

"Never  mind  that  now.  I  will  play  it  all  through 
for  you  again,  'Jesus,  tender  Shepherd.'  The  melody 
is  German,  as  a  matter  of  fact.  But  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land has  always  been  fortunate  in  picking  up  things 
that  never  originally  belonged  to  her." 

"No,"  interposed  Edwards.  "You  shall  not  play 
that  hymn.  If  you  do,  I  shall  leave  the  house." 

The  priest  rose,  and  laid  his  'cello  lovingly  aside. 

"You  see,  my  friend,"  he  said,  tapping  on  Edwards' 
breast  with  a  fat  forefinger,  ' '  there 's  a  live  spot  in  there 
after  all.  Not  all  dead  yet.' 

"It  is  not  a  live  spot.     It's  an  open  wound." 

"Wounds  won't  heal  unless  they  are  kept  healthy, 
unless  the  tissues  around  them  have  got  strength  enough 
to  do  the  healing  work.  As  a  surgeon,  you  must  know 
that.  But  how  can  your  wounds  heal,  my  friend,  when 
you  cover  them  up,  when  you  will  not  even  look  on  them 
quietly  with  your  own  eyes?  May  it  not  be  that  they 
have  healed  already,  and  you  only  imagine  that  they  are 
open  still?" 

"A  healed  wound  doesn't  ache  at  a  touch.  You 
touched  me  on  the  raw  a  moment  ago.  You  meant  to." 

"I  know.  But  perhaps  it's  only  the  very  last  sensi- 
tive edge  of  the  healing  tissues,  over  the  place  where 
the  hurt  went  deepest. — Cannot  you  trust  me?  Oh,  1 
don't  mean  in  the  matter  of  your  wounds.  Not  at  all. 
Nor  do  I  want  to  hear  you  call  yourself  'Vile  earth  and 
a  miserable  sinner.'  But  I  should  like  to  know  what's 
troubling  you." 

In  a  few  halting  words  Edwards  explained. 

"What  a  self -tormentor  you  are,"  said  the  priest. 
"As  if  it  made  any  difference  what  these  people  here 
say.  Of  course,  I  recognize  that  it  does  make  a  differ- 
ence,— to  you.  It  would  have  made  a  difference  to  me, 
once.  By  the  way,  have  you  not  a  surprise  at  how 
I  speak  English?  Now,  consider  for  a  moment,  my 
friend.  As  in  London,  they  say  'Half  a  mo'.'  This 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      163 

talk  about  you  in  the  village  is  rot.  What  you  call 
' utter  rot.'  You  must  have  said  something  to  Franzl 
that  gave  him  the  idea  that  you  had  of  late  been — been 
living  at  the  expense  of  the  King's  Majesty.  So  the 
old  wives  make  up  an  interesting  tale.  You  have  come 
here  to  bury  yourself  in  the  country,  having  been  but 
lately  released  from  prison.  No  doubt  they  have  already 
decided  on  the  particular  jail  which  had  the  honor 
of  your  presence." 

"But  I've  never  been  in  jail,"  interposed  Edwards. 
"How  ridiculous!" 

He  felt  unspeakably  relieved.  For  he  had  always 
had  a  strong  compelling  respect  for  the  law  of  the  land 
he  lived  in. 

"Why  should  such  things  not  always  be  ridiculous? 
It  seems  ridiculous  to  you  now,  because  you  know  it's 
not  true — not  in  the  slightest!  Why  shouldn't  it  be 
ridiculous,  too,  when  the  thing, — the  gossip,  is  true, 
wholly  or  in  part?  Ah,  my  friend,  that  is  what  you 
must  strive  for;  to  find  the  things  that  jump  at  you 
out  of  your  past — ridiculous.  Just  as  a  grown  man 
merely  laughs  at  a  silly  boy  who  pops  out  of  a  hiding- 
place  at  him  and  says  '  Boo ! '  But  it  frightens  a  child. ' ' 

"It  hurts  me,  though,  that  Franzl  of  all  people 

"You  have  hurt  him  too — and  sorely.  You  were, 
what  you  are  to  so  many  of  these  people,  his  god.  But 
a  god  should  be — how  says  the  English  Article? — 'with- 
out parts  or  passions.' — Remember,  Nani  is  as  much  his 
as  if  they  were  married.  If  you  took  her  from  him  now, 
he  would  feel  his  honor  more  stained  than  if  you  paid 
court  to  her  later  as  his  wife.  For  the  other  young 
men  mock  him.  They  say  he  is  not  able  to  keep  the  girl 
he  has  loved  so  long.  That  makes  him  see  red.  All 
the  more  red,  because  it  is  his  god — you — who  has  done 
this  thing.  Take  care,  take  care,  or  he  will  cure  you  of 
your  'parts  and  passions.'  But  I  will  speak  with  him. 
I  should  not  have  let  the  matter  go  so  far.  Only  I  am 
very  lazy.  I  leave  undone  the  things  that  I  ought  to 
have  done.  And  now — I  must  throw  you  out;  for,  as 
you  say,  'This  is  my  busy  day.'  " 


164      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

He  took  a  small  volume  from  his  pocket  and  held  it 
out  to  Edwards. 

"I  want  you  to  have  this,"  he  said,  dropping  back 
into  German,  ' '  in  memory  of  this  morning.  See,  I  have 
written  your  name  on  the  fly-leaf.  Do  you  know  the 
man?" 

Edwards  glanced  at  the  author's  name:  "Brother 
Andreas."  A  name  well  known  in  Tyrol  as  the 
pseudonym  of  a  poet  whose  small  collections  of  verse, 
appearing  now  and  then,  had  found  their  way  into 
many  libraries  and  not  a  few  hearts.  Not  a  great  poet, 
no ;  but  a  man  who  loved  his  own  people,  and  who  spoke 
to  them  in  words  that  they  understood.  Of  course, 
Edwards  had  heard  of  him. 

"This  volume,"  said  the  priest,  "isn't  meant  for  the 
general  public.  The  author  sent  me  a  copy  or  two. 
I'd  like  to  give  you  this  one,  because — because " 

He  took  off  his  great  blue  goggles  and  wiped  his  red- 
rimmed  eyes. 

"Well,  because  to-day  I  have  had  a  look  at  my 

worst,  my  deepest  wound.  And  I  find  it — really  I  think 
I  may  say  so — healed.  Except  for  a  swear-word  here 
and  there,  I  have  not  spoken  your  language  aloud  for 
over  twenty  years.  I  did  not  know  that  I  should  ever 
be  able  to  speak  it  again.  But  I  speak.  And  behold 
it  does  not  hurt. — 'Paete,  non  dolet.'  ' 

Edwards  took  the  little  volume.  The  priest  led  him 
to  the  top  of  the  "Widum"  steps,  patting  his  shoulder 
as  they  went. 

"The  time  will  come  for  you  too,"  he  said,  "when 
you  will  be  able  to  say  'Non  dolet.'  Meanwhile, 
'Tolerari  potest.'  Is  it  not  so?  Your  Anglican  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  is  nice  English,  but  it's  full  of  silly 
things.  It  says:  'The  remembrance  of  them  is  griev- 
ous unto  us;  the  burden  of  them  is  intolerable.'  Non- 
sense— eh  ? Nonsense ! ' ' 

Edwards  spent  an  hour  that  evening  reading  through 
the  little  volume  of  verse.  Portions  of  some  lines  seemed 
to  him  familiar.  But  it  was  not  until  he  had  reached 
a  sonnet,  called  "The  Comfort  of  the  Stars,"  that  he 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      165 

realized  whose  work  it  was  that  lay  between  his  hands. 

Next  Sunday  morning,  however,  there  was  nothing 
suggestive  of  the  poet  about  Father  Mathias,  when,  at 
the  end  of  his  sermon,  he  said — 

"Evil  tongues  have  been  spreading  among  us  a  story 
that  concerns  a  man  who  is  the  friend  of  every  person 
in  this  valley.  Have  you  forgotten  what  things  were 
like  before  he  came?  Are  you  anxious  to  drive  him 
away  ?  That  story  is  a  lie  from  beginning  to  end.  Any- 
one who  repeats  or  mentions  it  commits  willful  deadly 
sin.  And  I  shall  know  how  to  deal  with  that. — 'In 
Nomine  Patris,  et  Filii,  et  Spiritus  Sancti.  Amen.'  ' 

When  Edwards  came  out  of  church  after  mass  he  felt 
intensely  self-conscious.  The  people  of  Thiersee  felt 
self-conscious  too.  The  young  men  of  the  village  were 
drawn  up  along  the  path  through  the  churchyard,  for 
it  was  their  custom  so  to  stand  and  watch  the  girls  of 
the  congregation  go  by;  and  as  Edwards  reached  the 
top  of  this  long  line,  some  instinct  prompted  him  to  put 
out  his  hand. 

The  first  young  fellow,  a  great  strapping  lad  of  over 
six  feet,  met  it  with  a  grip  that  almost  broke  Edwards' 
fingers.  And  the  others,  at  his  side,  pushed  forward  to 
give  greeting  in  their  turn,  until  the  older  men,  not  to 
be  outdone,  joined  the  little  crowd  around  the  Herr 
Doktor,  while  the  girls  and  women,  gathered  by  the 
churchyard  gate,  curtsied  and  smiled  as  Edwards  passed 
out  with  the  men  pressing  close  behind  him. 

But  look  where  he  might,  Edwards  could  see  Franzl 
nowhere.  He  would  have  known  the  grasp  of  his  hand 
among  a  thousand.  Yet  he  had  not  felt  it  meet  his 
own. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

AN  almost  empty  purse  is  never  an  encouraging  sight. 

Edwards  was  looking  into  one  constantly  now.  He 
had  insisted  on  giving  Gipfl  the  fifty  covenanted  crowns, 
and  the  counterfeit  belt  of  the  great  Andreas  hung  over 
his  looking-glass  as  a  reminder  of  his  unhappy  effort  to 
make  money  by  speculating  in  Tyrolese  antiquities.  He 
had  at  last  written  to  Professor  Schroeder,  and  had  sent 
the  letter  to  Kuf stein  by  the  Burgermeister 's  sure  hand. 
As  yet  no  answer  had  come. 

His  first  quarter's  salary  had  been  paid.  He  had 
gone  in  person  to  the  meeting  of  the  "Select  Men," 
who  sat  around  the  table  in  the  back  room  of  the 
Drachen-Wirt  's,  all  looking  very  uncomfortable,  but  evi- 
dently clothed  upon  with  authority.  The  Biirgermeister 
had  counted  out  the  money  in  soiled  old  notes  and  greasy 
coins.  Less  the  local  taxes.  Edwards  had  forgotten  the 
taxes.  They  made  a  distressing  hole  in  what  he  had  ex- 
pected to  receive.  Then,  as  he  signed  the  receipt,  the 
Biirgermeister  had  said  gruffly — 

"Money's  not  everything  in  this  world,  Herr  Doktor. 
There  be  better  things." 

And  then  he  had  given  Edwards  his  hand,  and  the 
other  Select  Men  had  thumped  on  the  table  with  their 
beer-mugs  and  grunted  their  approval. 

But  in  a  community  where  one  had  to  pay  constantly 
in  cash,  this  quarter's  salary  was  soon  exhausted.  Ed- 
wards had  begun  to  fret  over  expenses  again;  and  it 
took  him  longer  than  ever  to  get  into  bed  each  night,  so 
tyrannically  complicated  had  his  ceremonial  of  bed-go- 
ing become. 

The  weather,  too,  had  been  evilly  cold.  Snow  in 
April  was  no  uncommon  thing,  but  not  so  much  snow. 
And  now.  at  the  beginning  of  May,  with  one  of  those 

166 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      167 

abrupt  changes  that  make  the  weather  of  Tyrol  such  a 
torment  to  the  stranger,  the  "Foehn"  had  begun  to 
blow;  or  rather,  it  was  already  blowing  across  the  tops 
of  the  surrounding  mountains,  and  only  the  still  hot 
atmosphere  that  accompanies  it  had  sunk  down  into  the 
Thiersee  valley.  It  was  as  if  one  were  imprisoned  in 
some  inverted  cauldron,  held  over  a  fire  and  into  which 
the  heated  air  came  pouring  and  then  remained  motion- 
less, until  all  the  freshness  seemed  to  have  gone  out  of 
life. 

This  sense  of  oppression  weighed  hard  on  everyone. 
It  made  the  women  nervous  and  cross ;  the  men  quarrel- 
some, boorish,  and  lustful.  And  if  the  native-born  felt 
it,  Edwards,  the  "Zugereister,"  felt  it  a  thousand  times 
more. 

In  the  midst  of  it  the  Biirgermeister  returned  from 
his  monthly  trip  to  Innsbruck,  reporting  that  he  had 
posted  Edwards'  letters,  had  actually  heard  them  rattle 
as  they  fell  into  the  letter-box.  And  he  brought  with 
him,  as  a  gift  from  himself  this  time,  another  bottle 
of  Scotch  whisky. 

' '  A  nasty  schnaps  you  drink,  Herr  Doktor, ' '  he  grum- 
bled, as  he  laid  the  bottle  on  Edwards'  table.  "Nasty 

expensive  too.  But  then  every  man  has  his  vice My 

compliments. ' ' 

That  night  the  third  patient  in  the  tiny  Clinic  slipped 
suddenly  out  of  life, — the  little  child  that  had  been  so 
badly  burned.  It  was  their  first  death  in  the  house; 
and  Edwards  and  Jon  eke  stared  at  one  another  hope- 
lessly, in  the  light  of  early  dawn,  across  the  narrow  bed 
where  the  dead  child  lay.  After  breakfast,  while  Joncke 
was  busy  with  his  school  children,  Edwards  went  out  for 
a  walk.  The  hot  depressing  air  had  not  lifted;  under 
foot  the  roads  were  a  mass  of  yellow  mud,  and  the  purple 
gentians  in  the  fields  looked  wilted  and  forlorn. 

He  stopped  at  the  carpenter's  shop  to  order  the  little 
coffin. 

Strumpl-Jonas,  the  carpenter,  who  had  played  Judas 
in  the  last  two  Passion-Plays,  and  was  proud  of  his 
acting,  especially  in  the  "Suicide  Scene,"  was,  for 


168      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Thiersee,  a  man  of  substance.  Houses  had  to  be  built  or 
repaired  now  and  then.  And  people  must  have  coffins. 
He  possessed  a  greasy  old  note-book,  in  which  he  had 
written  the  waist  measure  of  everybody  of  importance 
in  the  village,  much  as  the  editor  of  some  great  daily 
newspaper  keeps  at  hand  obituary  notices  of  all  promin- 
ent men. 

But  his  note-book  did  not  include  the  illegitimate  chil- 
dren; and  Edwards  had  not  thought  to  measure  the 
child's  thin  little  body. 

"But  we  must  be  exact,  Herr  Doktor,"  persisted 
Strumpl-Jonas,  running  a  tape-measure  through  his 
fingers.  "You  say,  about  sixty  centimetres  long.  Very 
well.  But  perhaps  fifty  would  have  done.  Then  you'd 
have  ten  centimetres  of  good  wood  wasted.  And  I  must 
charge  for  that,  you  know.  What's  the  use  of  throwing 
money  away? Who  pays  for  the  coffin,  anyhow?" 

Edwards  had  no  idea  of  that. 

"The  mother  can't  pay,"  the  carpenter  went  on. 
"And  I  don't  see  why  the  village  should.  I'm  one  of 
the  Select  Men,  and  I  'm  for  economy.  Perhaps  the  Herr 
Doktor,  as  the  child  died  in  his  house.  Then  an  extra 
ten  centimetres  needn't  worry  us,  need  it?" 

"It's  no  use  telling  you  people  that  I'm  poor,"  Ed- 
wards answered  hopelessly.  "No  one  believes  me. 
What  will  the  coffin  cost?" 

"With  the  extra  ten  centimetres?" 

Edwards  nodded.  He  could  not  bear  to  haggle  over 
the  child's  last  resting-place.  He  took  out  his  purse. 

Strumpl-Jonas  spat  on  his  pencil,  and  made  long 
laborious  calculations  on  the  end  of  a  board.  Edwards 
emptied  his  purse  at  the  carpenter's  elbow. 

"That's  all  I  have,"  he  said.  "Unless — unless  you 
can  wait  a  while  for  the  money." 

The  carpenter  counted  the  coins  spread  out  before 
him. 

"By  rights,"  he  said;  "by  rights  that  11  only  pay  for 
fifty  centimetres.  But  I'm  not  a  close-fisted  man.  I'd 
like  to  show  the  Herr  Doktor  that  I'm  a  friend  too.  I 
can't  bring  you  English  schnaps  like  the  Herr  Burger- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      169 

meister;  but  I'll  make  it  sixty  centimetres.  You  shall 
have  the  ten  extra  for  nothing.  Yes,  you  shall  have 
them." 

He  swept  the  money  into  his  palm,  pocketed  it;  and 
then,  as  if  ashamed  of  a  moment  of  weakness,  he  added — 

"Perhaps  Herr  Doktor  will  be  kind  enough  to  stand 
for  an  instant  against  the  jamb  of  my  door." 

Edwards  obeyed,  wonderingly.  Strumpl- Jonas  laid 
a  ruler  on  a  level  with  the  top  of  his  head,  and  then, 
pushing  him  gently  aside,  made  on  the  wood  of  the 
door-post  a  long  black  mark.  And  opposite  it,  he  wrote 
in  his  sprawling  hand — "Der  Herr  Doktor." 

Before  Edwards  could  protest  the  carpenter's  tape- 
measure  had  spanned  his  shoulders. 

"My  humble  thanks,"  said  Strumpl- Jonas,  producing 
his  old  note-book,  and  selecting  a  page  less  dirty  than 
the  rest.  "Now  I  can  be  ready  for  the  Herr  Doktor 
himself  at  any  time.  Griiss  Gott." 

Edwards  went  out.  As  he  crossed  the  threshold,  he 
glanced  up  at  the  door-post  where  Strumpl-Jonas  had 
but  now  written  his  name.  The  jamb  was  a  mass  of 
names  and  marks;  some  of  them  down  near  the  floor, 
others  higher  up.  And  against  many  of  them  was 
scratched  a  blank  cross. 

In  front  of  the  carpenter's  shop  two  coffins  lay  dry- 
ing in  the  sun;  mere  boxes  of  bare  white  boards,  the 
bottoms  of  them  clumsily  covered  with  a  layer  of  sticky 
pitch.  And  on  such  a  hard  bed  the  little  child  was  to 
lie ;  the  child  he  had  bedded  so  softly  all  these  last  nights, 
so  that  its  tortured  burned  body  might  have  rest ! 

It  was  a  hideous  thing  this  laying  of  the  dead  upon 
wooden  boards,  and  then  hiding  them  out  of  sight  in 
the  damp  earth.  Intolerable! 

And  this  his  own  body,  in  which  he  had  moved  and  suf- 
fered and  rejoiced !  In  a  box  like  that ! 

He  had  just  now  been  measured  for  it. 

And  in  this  respect  the  good  people  of  Thiersee  would 
be  pitiless.  Whatever  he  might  make  them  promise, 
as  he  lay  dying,  they  would  surely  buy  him  such  a  box, 
— made  to  measure,  not  even  with  ten  centimetres  to 


170      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

spare.  They  were  a  frugal  lot.  Then  they  would  hide 
him  in  the  damp  earth.  And  there  he  would  lie,  for  cen- 
turies perhaps,  the  cells  of  his  body  unable  to  return 
quickly  and  cleanly  to  the  world  of  insentiate  matter. 

He  must  not  die  in  Thicrsee. 

He  must  not  even  grow  ill  there.  Supposing  he  did 
get  ill,  with  typhoid,  with  something  that  would  make 
it  impossible  for  him  to  be  moved,  or  that  might  end 
in  delirium,  so  that  he  would  know  nothing,  could  say 
nothing  to  prevent  Strumpl-Jonas  coming  with  his  long, 
white,  pitch-covered  box! 

Was  he  not  ill  already?  Had  he  not  been  feeling 
wretchedly  for  the  last  month  ? 

The  old  trouble  with  his  heart.  That  had  no  terrors 
for  him ;  he  knew  all  about  that.  But  other  things  that 
he  did  not  know  and  could  not  guard  against !  He  was 
exposed  to  so  many  dangers  every  day.  He  had  so 
many  enemies  to  fight.  And  to  be  able  to  withstand 
them  he  must  keep  well. 

Need  he  withstand  them  all,  though?  To  some  things 
it  was  wisest  to  surrender. 

He  plodded  on  through  the  mud,  up  the  road,  away 
from  the  lake,  until  he  saw  the  stretch  of  Nani  's  pasture 
opening  before  him.  She  was  walking  there  to  and  fro, 
knitting  as  she  walked,  and  singing  to  herself. 

As  she  heard  his  footsteps  she  turned  to  meet  him. 
She  looked  so  strong,  so  self-possessed,  so  healthful. 
And  to  all  this  there  had  been  added  of  late  a  new  look 
of  secret  happiness  that  gave  her  lips  an  almost  constant 
smile,  her  eyes  a  soft  brightness. 

"But,  Herr  Doktor,"  she  said, — to  Edwards  her  glance 
was  like  a  caress, — "how  tired  you  do  look." 

It  was  this  glance,  this  direct  unexpected  intonation 
of  sympathy,  that  broke  through  his  habitual  self-con- 
trol. 

Standing  in  front  of  her,  his  face  close  to  hers,  he 
stammered  out  a  confused  confession. 

He  took  her  hands.  She  let  them  rest  passively  in 
his. 

But  his  tongue  soon  grew  heavy.    He  stumbled  in 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      171 

his  speech,  then  stopped  and  looked  beseechingly  into 
her  eyes. 

After  a  long  silence,  while  his  breath  came  short 
and  she  stood  there  utterly  unmoved  by  the  storm  of 
passion  that  had  swept  him  from  his  feet,  she  began 
to  answer  him  as  best  she  could,  choosing  her  words 
slowly,  leaving  long  pauses  between  each  phrase. 

"I  am  not  a  clever  girl.  It  is  hard  to  say  what  I 

mean.  But  I  must  try. You  see,  Herr  Doktor,  we 

have  given  you  a  place  in  our  lives.  And  we  want  you 
to  be  so  happy  in  that  place  that  you  will  not  wish  to 
leave  it,  ever. — But  if  you  get  ill  you  will  not  care  to 
stay. — You  must  not  get  ill,"  she  repeated,  her  whole 
body  tense  with  insistent  earnestness.  "You  must  not. 
Because,  then,  how  can  you  make  other  people  well? — 
Oh,  don't  you  see,  you  have  no  right  to  be  ill  at  all. 
Not  even  to  be  unhappy. — But  if  you  think  that  I " 

She  hesitated.     Edwards  broke  in. 

"I  am  a  man  like  any  other." 

She  looked  at  him  as  a  mother  looks  at  her  child 
who  stretches  its  hands  towards  the  fire  and  demands 
to  play  with  the  dancing  flames;  half  amused  at  his 
insistence,  yet  sad  because  she  cannot  give  him  what  he 
asks. 

"Ever  since  the  first  night  I  was  here  I've  thought 
of  you,"  Edwards  stumbled  on.  "That  night,  when  I 
saw  Franzl " 

Her  even  tones  interrupted  him. 

"He  was  your  friend." 

"He  isn't  now.  Why  should  he  stand  in  my  way? 
He  slandered  me.  He  has  avoided  me;  has  refused  me 
even  his  hand.  I  owe  him  nothing.  And  if  you — if 
you  care " 

Her  quiet  voice  interrupted  him  again. 

"And  would  you  cross  the  same  window-sill? — You, 
Herr  Doktor! — Climb  into  a  girl's  room,  like  any  silly 
love-sick  boy? You!" 

He  nodded  defiantly.  Then  suddenly  her  eyes  cleared, 
the  tension  of  her  body  relaxed. 

She  put  out  her  hand  and  softly  touched  his  arm. 


"I  am  a  little  disappointed,"  she  murmured.  "But 
— but  I  will  help  you  if  I  can." 

She  spoke  so  directly,  her  eyes  on  his,  that  he  did 
not  at  once  understand. 

' '  Then— then— to-night ? ' ' 

She  gravely  bent  her  head. 

Edwards  seized  her  arm  and  drew  her  towards  him. 

But  gently  she  freed  herself.  Her  strength  was  twice 
his,  and  she  made  him  feel  it — gently. 

"You  must  not  do  that,"  she  said.  "It  will  spoil  my 
medicine. ' ' 

Then,  turning  away,  she  left  him  standing  there  alone. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  patients  who  came  under  Edwards'  care  that  day 
thought  they  had  never  seen  the  Herr  Doktor  in  such 
good  spirits.  He  whistled;  he  told  old  jokes  with  such 
fresh  zest  that  they  seemed  hilariously  new;  he  was 
like  a  man  drunk  with  good  tidings.  And  at  sunset, 
as  he  came  into  his  little  clinic,  his  hat  on  the  back  of 
his  head,  humming  some  song  of  his  boyhood,  little 
Helena  sat  up  in  bed  and  clapped  her  hands  with  de- 
light, while  Joncke's  brown  head,  that  was  bent  close 
to  Toni's  red  one  over  a  geography  book,  was  raised 
with  such  a  comic  air  of  surprise  that  Edwards  sat  down 
on  the  bed  and  laughed. 

He  sat  there  while  Joncke  and  Frau  Speckbacher 
brought  the  two  children  their  supper;  he  watched  the 
intricate  processes  of  little  Helena's  evening  tub;  he 
rumpled  Toni's  red  hair;  in  fact,  he  behaved  in  a  way 
that  fascinated  the  children  quite.  Only  Joncke's  stern 
mouth  never  relaxed.  And  at  last,  during  a  pause  in 
the  children's  laughter,  he  said  to  Edwards  in  an  under- 
tone— 

"If  you  don't  mind,  I'll  sleep  on  the  sofa  in  your 
room  to-night.  Strumpl-Jonas  has  just  brought  the 
coffin.  I've  laid  little  Mimi  in  it  and  set  it  in  my  bed- 
room. Will  you  come  and  see?" 

Edwards  got  up  and  went  out  of  the  room.  He  had 
forgotten  all  about  little  Mimi  and  her  coffin.  All  about 
his  own  coffin  too.  And  he  had  been  measured  for  it 
only  that  morning.  Nevertheless  he  did  not  go  in  to 
look  at  the  dead  child.  There  would  be  plenty  of  time 
to-morrow. 

Later  on,  when  Joncke  joined  him  at  their  solitary 
supper,  he  said — 

"You  had  better  put  my  sofa  in  the  clinic  and  sleep 

173 


174      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

there.  The  children  might  need  someone  in  the  night. 
Besides, — I — I — well,  I  can't  get  to  sleep  when  I'm  not 
alone  in  my  bedroom.  And  that's  all  there  is  about  it." 

His  good  spirits  had  left  him  as  abruptly  as  they  had 
come.  He  resented  their  going.  Why  should  he  feel 
so  closely  in  touch  with  life  at  one  moment,  and  the 
next  so  out  of  all  conceit  with  the  world  and  him- 
self? 

" What's  the  matter  with  you,  anyway?"  he  snarled, 
as  Joncke  gazed  intently  at  the  table-cloth.  "I  think 
I  ought  to  know  how  much  whisky  I  need. ' ' 

Joncke  looked  up,  surprised. 

"I  didn't  even  see  that  you  had  got  the  bottle  out," 
he  answered.  "I  was  thinking  of  little  Mimi.  It  must 
feel  good  to  be  dead." 

Edwards  stared  at  his  companion.  Then  he  added 
more  whisky  to  a  drink  already  stronger  than  usual. 

"Because  life  seems  such  a  mistake,"  Joncke  went 
on.  "At  least,  my  life  does." 

"Here,"  interrupted  Edwards,  pushing  the  bottle 
towards  his  companion.  "Mix  a  little  of  that  with 
water  and  drink  it.  Do  as  I  tell  you.  It  will  cheer 
you  up." 

Joncke  obeyed  meekly.  But  the  alcohol  seemed  only 
to  increase  his  despondency,  although  it  gradually 
loosened  his  tongue.  After  a  few  minutes  he  began  to 
speak  again. 

"I  don't  often  talk  about  myself;  now,  do  I?  You'd 
think  my  life  would  seem  too  useless  even  to  talk  about. 
But  to-night — with  little  Mimi  lying  in  there — it's  dif- 
ferent somehow.  You  see,  I've  never  been  quite  so  close 
to  death  before.  And  death 's  about  the  most  fascinating 
thing  I've  ever  seen." 

"For  the  Lord's  sake,  man,"  said  Edwards,  "do  be  a 
little  less  doleful." 

Nani  was  clearing  away  the  supper.  His  eyes  fol- 
lowed her,  and  once  she  answered  his  smile.  To  the 
memory  of  that  smile  his  whole  consciousness  clung 
fast.  Joncke 's  voice  seemed  to  come  from  far  away. 

"I  made  a  mistake  from  the  beginning,"  it  went  on. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      175 

' '  Perhaps  I  couldn  't  have  done  otherwise,  being  the  sort 
of  man  I  am.  The  trouble  is,  I've  lived  what  people 
call  a  pure  life." 

With  his  forefinger  in  the  water  he  had  spilt  on  the 
table  near  his  glass  he  drew  strange  symbols,  that  seemed 
to  suggest  the  secrets  of  his  soul. 

"When  I  was  younger  I  hated  the  coarse,  nasty  jests 
that  my  older  brothers  made.  I  hated  the  coarse  things 
they  did.  So  I  built  a  wall  around  myself  and  wouldn  't 
let  anyone  come  inside.  I  thought,  because  of  what  I 
saw  my  brothers  do,  that  all  things  like — like  that  must 
be  coarse  and  nasty.  And  by-and-by,  when  I  found 
out  that  a — a  pure  life  means  only  a  lonely  sterile  life, 
— it  was  too  late.  Some  men  can  be  lonely  and  sterile 
and — happy,  I  suppose.  But  I'm  not  one  of  them. 
Only  I  had  built  up  my  wall,  and  when  I  wanted  to 
pull  it  down  and  let  people  in  I  couldn't.  It  was  too 

high,  and  too  thick;  much  too  thick. You've  made 

a  little  hole  in  it,  Edwards.  I'll  never  forget  that.  But 
though  it  may  let  you  in  when  you  want  to  come,  it  isn  't 
big  enough  to  let  me  out.  So  my  life  has  gone  bad  in 
itself,  like  a  good  wine  that's  been  bottled  up  too  long. 
My  nerves  are  all  shaky.  I  can't  sleep.  I  fly  into 
tempers,  and  from  tempers  into  a  cold  sweat.  And  my 
head  aches  sometimes  so  that  I  think  I'll  have  to  blow 
the  top  of  it  off  to  let  in  more  air.  My  brothers  are  all 
great  healthy  men.  They  don't  know  what  a  nerve  is. 
You  see, " 

He  leaned  forward  again,  delighting  in  some  impossi- 
ble outline  that  he  had  traced  upon  the  table. 

" you  see,  they've  none  of  them  lived  pure  lives. 

Not  they.  They  had  too  much  common-sense.  And 
father  wouldn't  have  let  me  lead  one  either  if  he  had 
guessed  what  I  was  doing. ' ' 

Edwards  stood  up  and  stretched  himself. 

"Better  turn  in  now,"  he  said.  "But  you're  right, 
of  course.  Why  have  you  never  told  me  all  this  before  ? 
I  might  have  prevented  some  of  it.  For  yours  isn't  a 
hard  case  to  diagnose.  A  touch  of  neurasthenia,  coming 
from  we  all  know  where.  However,  the  cure  is  not  far 


176      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

to  seek.  And  a  man  who  can't  find  some  way  to  it 
doesn't  deserve  a  man's  name.  "We'll  talk  of  this  again 
some  other  time.  I'll  help  you.  We've  all  got  to  help 

one  another  in  order  to  make  the  world  livable. 

Only,  not  to-night.  To-night,  I " 

He  broke  off  abruptly. 

"Let  me  give  you  a  hand  into  the  next  room  with 
that  sofa." 

' '  To-night ! ' '  stammered  Joncke.  ' '  Oh,  not — not  that ! 
Not  you.  Not — you!" 

"But,  yes.    And  now,  good-night." 

An  hour  later,  when  Edwards  put  out  the  candle  in 
his  bedroom,  the  moonlight  lay  on  the  worn  floor  in 
long  yellow  bars.  He  peered  out  of  his  window.  To 
his  right,  on  the  same  level,  another  window  stood  open 
also — the  window  of  his  little  ' '  Clinic. ' '  He  could  hear 
the  soft  breathing  of  the  two  children.  Joncke,  he  sup- 
posed, was  still  lying  awake. 

Poor  Joncke!     How  much  he  had  missed. 

Below  him  stretched  the  garden  that  surrounded  the 
schoolhouse,  with  its  clumps  of  bushes  and  solitary  trees 
just  beginning  to  bud.  Round  the  house  ran  a  narrow 
gravel  path.  From  that  path  to  the  low  sill  of  Nani's 
window  was  only  a  few  feet.  Two  steps  across  the 
grass,  one  step  up,  then  leg  over  and  in. 

He  waited  a  few  minutes  longer. 

Far  down  below  him,  beyond  the  village,  lay  the  quiet 
lake.  The  reflections  of  the  snow-covered  mountains 
were  blurred  to-night.  It  must  be  the  "Foehn,"  he 
thought,  that  had  troubled  the  waters,  like  some  evil 
angel. 

He  stole  out  of  his  room,  along  the  corridor,  and 
down  the  creaking  stairs.  The  broad  hall  where  the 
school-children  often  romped  was  ghostly  in  the  moon- 
light that  fell  through  the  window  over  the  front  door. 
And  towards  this  door  that  gave  on  the  garden  he  was 
stealthily  making  his  way,  when  he  heard  another  door 
on  the  upper  floor  open  and  close. 

It  must  be  Joncke,  confound  him.  What  was  he  up 
to  now? 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      177 

Silence  settled  down  again.  Edwards  stepped  for- 
ward once  more. 

Then  a  line  of  light  cut  the  shadows. 

A  door  on  his  left  that  led  into  the  Speckbachers ' 
little  apartment  opened  wide,  and  he  saw  Nani  stand- 
ing on  the  threshold.  In  silence  she  led  him  through 
the  kitchen,  pointing  warningly  to  the  further  room, 
where  her  mother  slept. 

And  now  at  last  he  stood  beside  her  in  her  own  tiny 
bedroom,  and  saw  through  her  open  curtains  the  moon- 
light on  the  gravel-path  of  the  garden  outside. 

"I  could  not  bear  to  have  you  come  through  the 
window,"  she  whispered. 

He  put  both  his  arms  about  her.  This  time  she  did 
not  free  herself  or  make  him  feel  her  strength,  but 
spoke  with  her  mouth  close  against  his  shoulder. 

"You  are  no  love-sick  boy  so  out  of  his  senses  that 
he  doesn't  know  what  he's  doing.  Be  still  for  a  mo- 
ment. I  have  yet  something  to  say. ' ' 

His  only  reply  was  to  press  his  lips  to  hers. 

She  pushed  his  face  away  with  the  flat  of  her  hand, 
gently. 

"Very  well,  then." 

She  released  herself  from  his  arms. 

"Only,  first, — you  must  look  at  what  I  have  been 
knitting. ' ' 

In  the  dim  light  of  her  bedroom  candle  she  held 
up  the  thing  that  had  been  concealed  under  her 
apron. 

"For  Franzl's  child,"  she  whispered.  "His  child 
and  mine." 

Then,  as  Edwards  made  no  answer,  she  came  close  to 
him  again. 

"Thou  seest,"  she  said,  using  the  friendly  "Du"  for 
the  first  time;  "thou  seest, — since  thou  hast  been  here, 
I — I  have  not  been  afraid." 

Edwards'  hands  dropped  to  his  side. 

"Thy  coming  to  this  village,"  she  went  on,  with  a 
simple  gesture  that  included  the  entire  silent  valley, 
"has  made  me  unafraid  of  what  you  men  call  love. — 


178      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Shall  thy  coming  to  this  room  of  mine  make  me  once 
more  afraid  of  it  ? " 

He  sank  down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed. 

He  could  not  have  put  his  feeling  into  words;  but 
he  knew  that  he  had  been  standing  perilously  near  the 
border-line  of  a  sin  from  which  no  power  in  heaven  or 
earth  could  speak  him  free.  Not  even  he  himself, — he 
himself  least  of  all. 

' '  I  am  sorry, ' '  he  said.    And  his  voice  broke  in  a  sob. 

She  was  beside  him  in  an  instant. 

"Ah,  but,"  she  said, — throwing  one  arm  about  his 
neck  and  rubbing  her  soft  cheek  against  his, — "ah,  but 
thou  art  a  dear  man." 

He  buried  his  hot  shamed  face  in  her  lap,  pressing 
his  brimming  eyes  against  the  bit  of  knitted  wool  that 
she  still  held,  close  to  the  new  life,  of  which  he  knew 
himself  at  last  the  unselfish  consecrated  priest. 

"Herr  Lehrer, — Herr  Lehrer." 

Toni's  voice  quavered  eagerly  through  the  stillness 
of  the  little  clinic  upstairs. 

"Herr  Lehrer,  I  see  someone  in  the  garden." 

The  boy  was  leaning  out  of  the  window. 

Joncke  stole  from  his  improvised  bed  and  joined  him. 

"I  couldn't  sleep,"  Toni  went  on.  "So  I  came  here 
to  watch  the  stars.  And  I  noticed  someone  slink  along 
behind  those  bushes  over  there. — See — there  he  goes 
again — across  that  patch  of  moonlight. — It's  Franzl. 
Or  it  looks  like  him." 

"And  he — the  Herr  Doktor,"  stammered  Joncke,  his 
lips  a-tremble  with  excitement  and  fear.  "He's  not  in 
his  bedroom.  I  looked  in  a  few  minutes  ago.  I  heard 
him  go  downstairs  to to " 

He  caught  the  boy  by  the  arm,  covered  his  shoulders 
with  a  blanket,  and  then  whispered — 

"Don't  move  from  the  window.  Keep  good  watch 
on  that  man  you  saw,  whoever  he  is.  There's  danger,  I 
think. — Oh,  Toni,  this  is  my  chance, — my  chance  at 
last." 

Left  alone  Toni  peered  down  into  the  garden.    Per- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      179 

haps  the  man  was  a  robber.  He  tried  not  to  be  fright- 
ened. But  his  hands  began  to  shake,  and  his  lame  leg 
hurt  him  badly. 

There  was  a  step  on  the  gravel  of  the  garden  path. 
A  dark  figure  came  hurrying  along.  It  wore  the  Herr 
Doktor's  stiff  hat,  and  thrown  about  its  shoulders  was 
the  Herr  Doktor's  old  rain-cloak.  Yet  somehow  it  did 
not  walk  exactly  like  the  Herr  Doktor.  Toni's  quick 
eyes  noticed  that  at  once. 

The  figure  stopped  in  front  of  an  open  window  on 
the  ground-floor.  Nani's  window.  It  stopped  and 
looked  in. 

In  the  stillness  of  the  night  Toni  heard  an  exclama- 
tion of  surprise  from  someone  inside  the  room  below 
him.  Then  the  same  voice  called  softly. 

The  figure  crossed  the  bit  of  lawn  between  the  win- 
dow and  the  path,  and  leaned  over  the  low  sill  as  if 
speaking  to  someone  within. 

Suddenly  Toni's  clear  tones  rang  out  in  warning. 

"Herr  Doktor — look  out.  Herr  Doktor — look  behind 
you." 

But  before  the  man  at  the  window  could  turn,  an- 
other dark  figure  had  come  springing  across  the  grass. 
It  held  a  knife  in  its  hand;  the  moonlight  glinted  on 
the  blade.  It  flung  itself  upon  the  other,  and  struck 
twice. 

The  figure  at  the  window  pitched  head  first  into  the 
room. 

And  beyond  it,  in  the  light  of  Nani's  bedroom  candle, 
Franzl  saw  the  man,  whom  he  had  just  thought  to  kill, 
staring  at  him  with  terrified  eyes  over  the  motionless 
body  of  the  schoolmaster. 


CHAPTER  XV 

EDWARDS  had  already  gone  out,  next  morning,  when 
Joncke,  who  lay  in  the  doctor's  bed,  opened  his  eyes 
and  caught  sight  of  Toni  's  red  head. 

"So  I'm  not  going  to  get  my  chance  after  all,  Toni," 
he  said.  "They'll  be  burying  little  Mimi  to-day.  And 
I'd  made  up  my  mind  to  be  with  her.  I  do  seem  to 
make  a  mess  of  everything.  "What's  the  matter  with 
me  anyway?" 

Toni  explained  that  Franzl's  knife  had  plowed  a  deep 
wound  from  the  top  of  the  shoulder,  down  the  back  and 
along  the  ribs.  Had  he  struck  a  few  inches  further 
forwards,  the  blade  would  have  gone  between  first  rib 
and  collar-bone.  And  then  ' '  the  Herr  Lehrer  would  have 
been  with  little  Mimi  right  enough."  The  second  blow 
had  made  no  wound  at  all,  but  the  impact  of  the  assail- 
ant's fist  had  sent  Joncke  headlong,  knocking  the  wind 
and  the  senses  out  of  him. 

A  few  hours  later  Edwards  came  in  from  the  funeral. 
He  sat  down  by  the  bed. 

"You  might  have  warned  me  without  dressing  up  in 
my  clothes, ' '  he  said,  taking  Joncke 's  hand.  ' '  Of  course 
Nani  saw  you  outside  and  called  to  you.  We  couldn't 
tell  who  you  were.  And  that  gave  Franzl  his  chance. 
But  I  shan't  forget  it,  Emil.  And,"  he  added  gruffly, 
"if  you  ever  call  me  anything  but  Charley  I  shall  be 
very  angry  indeed." 

Joncke 's  face  lighted  up  with  delight. 

"And  Franzl?"  he  asked. 

Edwards  scowled.  He  had  not  forgiven  the  blazing 
look  of  hatred  that  he  had  seen  in  the  eyes  of  his  former 
friend. 

"Oh,  nothing  will  happen  to  him.  He  says  'Nichts 
fiir  unguat,'  like  all  the  rest  of  them,  and  thinks  he 

180 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      181 

has  made  everything  right.  He  and  Nani  are  off  to- 
gether somewhere.  They're  as  thick  as  thieves  again. 
Nani  explained  that  I  only  came  down  to  her  room  last 
night  because  she  felt  faint.  She  has  confided  to  him 
the  reason  of  her  faintness,  so  that  he's  in  the  seventh 
heaven.  Just  the  same,  he  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  him- 
self." 

Then  he  added,  in  a  lower  voice — 

"I  know  that  I  am." 

Joncke  made  a  rapid  recovery.  The  blood-letting 
seemed  to  have  done  him  good.  As  for  the  school  chil- 
dren, when  he  appeared  after  their  unexpected  four 
days'  holiday,  his  arm  in  a  sling  and  leaning  on  Toni's 
shoulder,  they  threw  discipline  to  the  winds  and  crowded 
about  him,  shouting  with  delight.  Edwards,  who  had 
stopped  outside  the  schoolroom  door,  caught  the  quick 
reflection  of  their  happiness  on  Joncke 's  face,  and  act- 
ually envied  him.  "For,"  as  he  said  to  himself,  "this 
man's  work  is  his  highest  possible  joy.  He  loves  chil- 
dren, not  as  the  ordinary  man  does,  but  like  a  childless 
woman  whose  whole  being  yearns  towards  them  and 
whose  love  enfolds  them  all.  Without  his  stupid  peasant 
forebears  and  his  solid  training  in  Innsbruck  he  would 
be  a  mere  sentimentalist,  whom  his  pupils  would  not 
long  respect.  But  as  it  is,  he  ought  to  be  the  most  con- 
tented man  in  the  world.  If  he  isn't,  it  is  because  he 
has  not  yet  realized  his  own  happiness.  I  must  make 
him  realize  it. ' ' 

Apparently  the  "Foehn"  has  ceased  blowing  on  the 
heights  above,  for  in  the  valley  the  hot  heavy  air  had 
lifted  and  a  cool  refreshing  breeze  was  wandering  among 
the  scattered  houses  of  the  village,  touching  the  budding 
trees  and  rippling  the  surface  of  the  placid  little  lake. 
A  sense  of  having  been  freed  from  bondage  lay  over 
everything.  Even  the  bare  fresh  mound  of  earth  in 
the  churchyard  that  marked  the  place  where  little  Mimi 
rested  did  not  look  so  bare  or  so  desolate  as  it  had  seemed 
to  Edwards  a  few  days  ago,  when  he  had  stood  beside 
it  with  Mimi's  mother,  holding  her  rough  hand  in  his. 
She,  "die  Greier-Susi, "  had  said,  "I  hope  Our  Lady, 


182      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

will  be  kind  to  my  little  Mimi.  I  never  had  time  to  be. 
I  suppose  they  don't  mind  out-of- wedlock  babies  in 
heaven.  But  down  here,  a  child  like  that  is  always  in 
the  way.  And  plenty  of  men  had  rather  not  marry  its 
mother,  and  put  the  food  they  earn  into  a  mouth  that 
was  made  by  somebody  else.  It's  hard  on  the  child — 
'Aber  das  Leben  ist  halt  so.'  "x 

"You  might  have  thought  of  all  this  before,"  Ed- 
wards had  answered. 

And  the  Greier-Susi,  as  she  threw  her  handful  of  earth 
on  the  little  coffin,  had  retorted — 

"We  think  often  enough  of  it — we  women.  We  have 
to.  It's  you  men  that  never  think.  It  don't  seem  fair 
somehow,  does  it?" 

She  sighed,  and  dribbled  a  palmful  of  very  muddy 
holy-water  into  the  open  grave. 

Edwards  had  found  no  answer  then.  Even  now  he 
found  none  as  he  passed  the  graveyard  on  the  way  to 
his  daily  round  of  visits.  But  the  fresher  air,  the  sense 
of  freedom  and  of  spring,  did  him  good.  Greier-Susi 's 
words  crept  into  his  thoughts,  and  he  repeated  them 
aloud  as  if  conscious  of  some  hidden  meaning  in  them 
that  had  escaped  him  hitherto. 

"Das  Leben  ist  halt  so." 

And  no  doubt  this  was  the  only  answer  possible. 

That  same  evening  he  was  surprised  when  Frau  Speck- 
bacher  herself  came  in  to  clear  away  the  supper  things. 

"Nani's  gone  into  the  mountains  for  a  day  or  two," 
she  explained.  "She  got  it  into  her  head  that  it  would 
do  Franzl  good  if  she  could  take  him  away  from  here  for 
a  while.  They'll  spend  the  night  at  the  ' Alpen-Verein ' 
hut,  and  climb  up  to  the  top  early  to-morrow, — Sunday 
too :  and  they  not  getting  to  mass  to  greet  the  dear  Lord. 
No  good  will  come  of  it,  I  warrant. — And  when  they've 
seen  the  sunrise  they  '11  be  starting  down  homewards  over 
the  glacier.  Between  those  two  peaks " 

She  pointed  through  the  window  at  the  twin  moun- 

i  "Aber  das  Leben  ist  halt  so."  "But  that's  the  way  life  goes." 
One  of  the  thousand  fatalistic  sayings  that  one  so  constantly  hears 
among  Tyrolese  peasants. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      183 

tain-tops  that  rose  high  above  the  rest,  still  tinged  with 
the  red  of  the  setting  sun. 

As  she  leaned  across  Joncke,  helping  him  to  cut  up 
his  meat  (he  could  not  yet  use  his  wounded  arm),  the 
schoolmaster  whispered  in  her  ear — 

"Don't  let  the  Herr  Doktor  know  you're  worrying. 
It  would  only  keep  him  awake. ' ' 

Frau  Speckbacher  nodded.  Then,  assuring  herself 
with  a  look  that  Edwards  was  deep  in  his  newspaper, 
she  whispered  back — 

"Nani  knows  every  inch  of  the  way.  But  after  such 
a  long,  hot  wind,  and  all  the  fresh  snow  that  fell  before 
it  came, — you  understand  how  it  is.  I  begged  her  not 
to  go.  But  it  was  for  Franzl.  Everything  for  Franzl. 
The  good-f or-naught !  Letting  my  Nani  torture  her  old 
mother  with  worry  just  to  get  the  evil  thoughts  out  of 
his  thick  head !  And  him  not  at  peace  with  his  soul ! — 
Twice  the  Herr  Doktor  offered  him  his  hand.  But  he 
would  not  take  it,  the  sulky  brute." 

"What  are  you  two  whispering  about?"  interposed 
Edwards.  He  looked  up  from  his  paper  for  an  instant. 

"It  was  only  about  to-morrow's  supper.  Frau 
Speckbacher  was  suggesting  that ' 

But  Edwards  heard  no  more.  A  name  in  the  paper 
before  him  had  caught  his  attention.  It  was  an  old 
Innsbruck  paper,  an  unusual  luxury,  and  he  had  read, 
as  he  thought,  every  line  of  it, — all  except  the  ad- 
vertisements and  the  list  of  hotel  arrivals.  But,  as  he 
had  raised  his  eyes  to  look  over  the  top  of  it  at  Joncke, 
a  single  name,  in  the  middle  of  a  long,  finely-printed 
paragraph,  had  leaped  out  at  him.  He  read  it  again 
and  again.  Then  he  glanced  at  the  date  of  the  paper. 
Two  weeks  old. 

And  the  paragraph  was  not  from  the  hotels.  It 
was  a  list  of  subscribers  to  some  local  charity — "The 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Tuberculosis  in  Tyrol." 

She  was  in  Innsbruck,  then.     For  it  must  be  she. 

She  knew  he  lived  there.  She  had  promised  to  write 
if  she  were  ever  to  be  passing  through.  And  she  had 
not  written. 


184      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

He  went  to  the  open  window,  turning  his  back  on 
the  others  and  looking  up  at  the  encircling  mountains. 
They  had  always  given  him  a  feeling  of  protection,  as  if 
standing  guard  against  evil  things  that  sought  to  reach 
him  from  the  outside  world.  But  now  he  sensed  them 
as  obstacles,  placed  between  him  and  his  dreams,  block- 
ing the  road  to  his  Impossible  Land. 

He  took  from  his  pocket  the  thin  leather  wallet,  and 
separated  from  the  others  the  last  of  the  five  worn  letters. 
Her  last  letter.  The  letter  in  which  she  had  written  of 
hoping  to  see  him  in  Europe ;  in  which  she  had  promised 
to  write  soon  again,  the  moment  that  her  plans  had  taken 
shape.  A  year  ago. 

And  she  had  not  written. 

With  a  sudden  sense  of  shock  he  realized  that  this 
Easter,  for  the  first  time  in  five  years,  he  had  had  no 
letter  from  her.  Deep  in  his  subconsciousness,  he  had 
never  given  up  the  hope  of  receiving  one.  In  former 
years  her  greetings  had  never  come  exactly  in  the  Easter- 
tide. Always  a  week  or  two  later  than  the  Feast  itself. 
And  his  custom  had  been  never  to  write  to  her  except  in 
answer. 

And  now  he  knew  that  this  year  there  would  be  no 
letter.  She  had  been  in  Innsbruck;  had  known  his  ad- 
dress; and  she  had  not  written.  Had  not  even  tried  to 
see  him. 

So  that  was  the  end  of  his  Impossible  Land. 

During  these  last  months  something  must  have  hap- 
pened; something  that  had  put  an  end  to  her  letters; 
something  that  she  had  heard,  no  doubt,  about  him. 
Whatever  it  was,  it  had  cut  the  friendly  ties  that  bound 
them.  She  had  dropped  him  without  a  word.  At  least 
she  might  have  given  him  a  chance  to  know  what 
her  reasons  were, — a  chance  to  defend  himself.  But 
then,  women  were  like  that,  mostly.  Yet  he  had  thought 
her  not  quite  like  other  women. 

Her  husband,  blessed  old  John,  would  never  have 
been  so  unjust. 

Slowly  he  folded  up  the  letter  he  held,  laid  it  on  top 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      185 

of  the  others,  and  then  tore  the  little  packet  across  and 
across  again,  until  the  tiny  squares  of  worn  paper  began 
to  drop  from  his  fingers,  blown  off  by  the  breeze  into 
the  shadows  of  the  garden  below. 

His  leathern  wallet  was  empty  now.  These  letters 
had  gone  the  way  of  all  the  other  things  it  had  once 
contained.  The  last  link  that  bound  him  to  his  old  life 
had  snapped.  The  road  to  his  Impossible  Land  was 
closed  to  him  forever. 

But  it  had  been  a  link  of  his  own  forging,  had  it  not  ? 
A  land  of  his  own  making.  He  could  blame  no  one  be- 
cause it  had  suddenly  ceased  to  be. 

"With  uncertain  fingers  he  thrust  the  wallet  back  into 
his  pocket.  It  was  not  quite  empty.  Something  hard 
met  his  touch. 

The  little  photograph  of  his  dead  friend's  child. 

He  took  it  out;  was  about  to  tear  it  in  half.  Then, 
with  a  quick  glance  over  his  shoulder,  as  if  ashamed 
before  unseen  presences,  he  slipped  the  picture  back 
into  its  accustomed  place. 

The  child  would  grow  into  a  man.  Perhaps,  if  his 
luck  ever  turned,  he  might  be  able  to  render  him  some 
service.  His  imagination  began  to  run  riot. 

He  saw  a  man  with  the  face  of  his  dear  friend — with 
John  Bowman's  smile — fighting  vainly  against  some 
disease.  And  then  he,  Edwards,  would  come  in;  he 
would  conquer  the  fever  or  whatever  the  danger  might 
be,  would  make  the  sick  man  well  and  strong. — Then, 
before  he  bade  him  good-by,  he  would  show  him  the 
worn  photograph  of  a  little  child's  face,  taken  from  an 
old  leather  wallet.  And  he,  Edwards,  would  say,  ' '  Your 
father, — your  father  and  I — 

A  dull  rumbling  sound  like  distant  thunder  inter- 
rupted the  course  of  his  thought. 

He  laughed,  without  bitterness,  at  himself.  What  a 
sentimental  idiot  he  was!  Worse  than  Joncke  in  his 
softest  moments.  But  he  would  not  destroy  the  photo- 
graph. It  might  prove  the  key  to  some  newly-discovered 
Impossible  Land. 


186      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

And  a  man  must  have  something  to  dream  about. 

Joncke  was  standing  close  behind  him,  looking  out 
over  his  shoulder  at  the  silent  mountains. 

"Did  you  hear  that  avalanche,"  he  asked.  "Hark! 
There  goes  another." 

The  air  was  softly  shaken  by  low  distant  vibrations, 
like  sound-waves  from  some  enormous  organ-pipe,  too 
deep  to  be  heard  as  a  distinct  note.  Joncke 's  voice  fell 
to  a  whisper — 

"That  was  death  passing  by,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

ON  the  following  morning,  Sunday,  all  Thiersee  was 
gathered  about  the  graves  in  the  churchyard,  waiting 
for  the  mass  to  begin,  when  the  bad  news  came. 

Half  a  dozen  of  the  young  men,  armed  with  ice-axes 
and  ropes,  started  at  once.  The  others  stood  by  the 
churchyard  wall  and  watched  them  go.  Then  the  bell 
rang,  and  the  people  went  quietly  in  to  mass, — to  wait. 

To  Edwards  that  mass  seemed  endless. 

He  had  been  anxious  to  join  the  rescue-party,  but 
they  would  not  take  him.  He  did  not  know  the  moun- 
tains, was  no  climber,  and  there  was  undoubted  danger. 
"Were  he  on  the  spot  of  the  accident  he  could  do  noth- 
ing if  the  people  were  dead.  If  they  were  only  injured 
they  could  be  better  treated  at  Thiersee  than  up  in  the 
hut  of  the  "Alpen  Verein."  And  in  either  case,  the 
rescue-party  would  be  back  that  same  evening. 

From  the  man  who  had  brought  the  news,  Edwards 
heard  something  of  what  had  happened. 

Six  people  had  spent  the  night  at  the  hut,  and  be- 
fore sunrise  next  morning  had  started  out  for  the  sum- 
mit. They  had  gone  very  carefully,  for  they  saw  that 
the  drifts  were  far  more  treacherous  than  they  had  sup- 
posed. Then, — well,  then  no  one  remembered  much 
more. 

Three  of  them  had  found  themselves  buried  in  snow; 
one  was  standing  on  his  head.  Somehow  they  had 
worked  themselves  loose.  They  had  been  on  the  edge  of 
the  avalanche,  and  had  not  been  buried  very  deep.  They 
had  looked  about  for  their  companions,  but  there  was 
nothing  to  be  seen  except  an  expanse  of  quivering  white. 

"But  one  of  them,"  said  the  bearer  of  the  ill  news, 
"was  a  clever  chap.  He  knew  there  was  no  time  to  be 
lost  if  the  other  three  were  to  be  got  out  alive.  Yet 

187 


188      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

where  they  lay  he  couldn't  tell.  The  main  sweep  of  the 
avalanche  might  have  carried  them  a  hundred  meters 
away, — covered  them  under  twenty  meters  of  snow.  So 
he  whipped  out  his  knife,  took  his  alpenstock,  and  slit 
it  down  the  middle.  The  whole  stick  would  have  been 
too  thick.  The  thicker  half  he  threw  away;  held  one 
end  of  the  other  half  fast  between  his  back  teeth,  and 
then  sank  the  other  end  in  the  snow.  Never  heard  of 
that  trick? — "Well,  you  try  it. — If  anything  for  quite  a 
distance  under  the  snow  moves  or  struggles,  you  feel  it 
in  your  back  teeth.  It's  a  fact.  And  that's  how  he 
found  her, — after  sounding  three  times.  But  she  was 
unconscious.  Maybe  she 's  dead  by  now. — The  two  others 
they  hadn  't  found  yet  when  they  sent  me  down  from  the 
hut  for  help. — Well,  yes,  I  will  take  another  small  glass, 
as  you  're  so  kind. ' ' 

Edwards  made  what  preparations  he  could.  But  the 
suspense  was  sickening. 

Who  were  the  two  that  had  "not  been  found"?  Who 
were  the  uninjured? 

The  messenger  had  known  no  names,  nor  had  he  been 
able  to  describe  the  survivors. 

Moreover,  if  the  unfortunate  people  had  come  from 
other  places  than  Thiersee,  they  would  surely  be  car- 
ried directly  down  to  the  nearest  railway  station. 
Thiersee  was  entirely  out  of  their  road.  There  were 
only  Franzl  and  Nani  to  think  of. 

During  the  suspense  of  that  long  afternoon  Edwards 
had  a  chance  to  admire  the  self-control  of  the  simple- 
hearted  peasants.  The  Bin-germeister,  after  the  mass, 
had  walked  home  with  Frau  Speckbacher.  And  now 
the  two  sat  side  by  side  in  the  schoolhouse  kitchen,  he 
puffing  at  his  pipe,  she  busy  with  her  mending.  Only 
now  and  then  they  exchanged  a  few  gruff  words. 

"A  good  lad,  thy  Franzl." 

"Aye,  a  good  lad.    Thy  Nani,  too,  is  none  so  ill." 

"That  she 'snot." 

"A  fine  pair." 

"Might  be  worse." 

"I  mean,  if  it  be  the  Lord's  will." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      189 

"His  will  be  done." 

"How  much  longer  now,  think  ye?" 

* '  Three  to  four  hours  yet. ' ' 

"I'll  be  staying  it  out  with  ye." 

"That'll  be  neighborly.  I'll  put  on  water  for  fresh 
coffee." 

"Aye,  do  ye  now." 

And  while  Edwards  fluttered  nervously  about  the 
house,  attended  by  Joncke  like  some  impatient  uneasy 
sprite,  these  two  old  people  sat  motionless  in  the  kitchen 
waiting  God's  will. 

Frau  Speckbacher  may  have  taken  more  coffee  than 
her  custom  was  of  a  Sunday  afternoon;  certainly  the 
Herr  Biirgermeister  smoked  endless  pipes;  but  other- 
wise they  were  the  same  as  usual.  Towards  five  o  'clock, 
however,  when  Toni  's  resonant  voice  announced  from  the 
upper  window  that  he  saw  the  rescue-party  coming  up 
the  road,  the  two  old  people  could  stand  the  uncertainty 
no  longer.  They  came  out  into  the  garden. 

"What  be  they  carrying,  Toni?"  the  Biirgermeister 
called  up  to  the  bobbing  red  head  at  the  window  above 
him.  "Canst  see?" 

"  'Tis  a  litter  made  of  boughs." 

"One  litter  or  two?" 

The  old  man's  voice  shook. 

"Only  one,  Herr  Biirgermeister.  And  they're  all 
coming  this  way." 

The  Biirgermeister  turned  and  laid  his  hand  on  Frau 
Speckbacher 's  arm. 

"They've  brought  home  only  one,"  he  said  slowly. 

As  if  by  common  consent  the  two  old  people  turned 
back  into  the  house.  They  knew  the  worst  now.  One 
of  their  children  lay  crushed  beneath  the  snow  high 
up  there  on  the  mountains. 

Steps  crunched  on  the  gravel  of  the  garden  path.  A 
shadow  fell  across  the  threshold  of  the  open  kitchen  door. 
The  Biirgermeister  rubbed  his  great  horn  spectacles,  put 
them  on,  and  then — his  short  pipe  with  its  porcelain 
bowl  clattered  to  the  floor  and  smashed  into  pieces  on 
the  flagging. 


190      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Franzl, — his  Franzl  was  standing  in  the  doorway ! 

"We've  had  a  bit  of  a  misadventure,  father,"  he  said 
in  a  matter-of-fact  tone,  as  if  misadventures  were  the 
ordinary  happenings  of  every  day.  "  I  've  brought  Nani 
down  on  a  litter.  She  was  under  the  avalanche  for  a 
while,  and  she's  dazed-like  still." 

The  old  man  shook  his  head  disapprovingly. 

"Th'art  a  fool,  Franzl,"  he  said,  "to  take  a  girl  into 
the  mountains  this  time  of  year.  But  the  dear  Lord 
has  a  care  for  fools,  they  say.  What  of  the  others  ? ' ' 

Franzl  crossed  himself. 

"Two  are  missing.  God  knows  where  they  lie. 
We've  asked  for  a  company  of  infantry  from  Innsbruck 
to  help  search." 

"God  give  them  everlasting  rest,"  said  Frau  Speck- 
bacher. 

There  was  silence  in  the  kitchen  while  the  two  old 
people  sat  with  folded  hands,  praying  for  the  dead.  One 
"Pater  Noster,"  three  "Aves,"  and  a  "Requiem  aetar- 
nam." 

After  a  few  moments  the  Bin-germeister  signed  him- 
self with  unsteady  fingers,  and  rose  to  his  feet. 

"We'll  be  a-going  now,  Frau  Speckbacher, "  he  said. 
"Here  come  the  lads  with  thy  Nani.  I'll  be  sending 
up  to  ask  news  of  her  soon.  Franzl,  let  me  lean  a  bit 
on  thy  arm." 

Nani's  bed  had  been  made  ready  for  her,  but  Edwards 
gave  one  look  at  the  girl's  face,  and  instantly  changed  his 
mind.  There  was  only  one  really  sunny  room,  only  one 
tolerably  comfortable  bed  in  the  house.  Into  that  she 
must  go. 

An  hour  later  he  came  softly  out  of  his  own  bedroom 
where  Nani  lay.  Joncke  was  waiting  for  him  in  the  hall. 

"Well?" 

Edwards  shook  his  head. 

"No,  it  isn't  at  all  well,"  he  said,  "but  whether  it 
is  only  a  concussion  that  will  pass  in  a  few  hours,  or 
whether  it  is  something  far  more  dangerous,  I  can't  tell 
yet.  If  the  pulse  gets  much  slower,  and  if  there  are  other 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      191 

symptoms  of  pressure  on  the  brain  from  the  inside,  I 
shall  be  at  my  wits'  end.  Brain-surgery  is  beyond  me. 
We  shouldn't  have  time  to  get  a  surgeon  from  Inns- 
bruck, even  if  he  would  come, — for  nothing.  And  any- 
one except  a  first-class  operator  would  be  of  no  use." 

Joncke  moved  away  despondently.  Never  before  had 
he  heard  Edwards  give  up  so  easily,  admit  so  completely 
his  own  powerlessness  to  help.  He  wandered  into  the 
little  "Clinic,"  and,  as  he  often  did,  talked  to  Toni  too 
openly  and  too  much. 

And  Toni,  who  admired  Franzl  with  the  whole 
strength  of  his  boyish  soul,  was  delighted  to  have  so 
much  exciting  news  to  give  his  idol,  when  the  young 
man  came  early  next  morning  to  ask  how  Nani  did. 
School  had  not  yet  begun,  but  the  children  had  been 
warned;  their  voices  were  hushed,  and  they  stepped  on 
tiptoe  through  the  shadowy  hall. 

Franzl  did  not  believe  all  that  Toni  had  said.  Never- 
theless he  was  troubled ;  and  as  soon  as  the  children  had 
been  called  into  school  he  knocked  at  Frau  Speckbacher's 
door.  No  one  answered.  He  walked  in.  There  was  no 
one  in  the  kitchen.  Then  he  saw  that  the  door  of  Nani 's 
little  room  was  ajar.  He  pushed  it  open  softly. 

Nani's  bed  was  empty.  It  had  not  even  been  turned 
down. 

So  something  was  really  wrong.  Toni  had  not  been 
lying. 

He  hurried  up  the  steps  that  led  to  the  second  floor. 
At  the  door  of  Edwards'  bedroom  he  stopped;  he  heard 
low  voices  inside,  but  no  voice  answered  his  knock. 
Then,  as  he  lifted  the  latch  and  stood  hesitating  on  the 
threshold,  he  saw  Frau  Speckbacher  coming  towards 
him.  The  tears  were  running  down  her  lined  face,  drip- 
ping on  something  that  she  carried  in  her  apron. 

Franzl  stammered  out  a  question.  She  could  not  an- 
swer, but  she  opened  her  apron  and  let  him  look. 

Her  apron  was  filled  with  thick  brown  locks.  Nani's 
hair! 

Franzl  stared  stupidly,  until  Frau  Speckbacher  walked 
past  him  out  of  the  room.  It  was  then  he  got  his  first 


192      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

good  view  of  the  bed.  And  at  first  he  saw  nothing, 
except  the  white  pillow. 

Then  against  this  white  background  something  moved 
slightly :  a  white  face,  and  a  shorn  head  wrapped  in  white 
bandages. 

How  he  got  out  of  the  room  he  never  knew.  Half 
an  hour  later  Edwards  found  him  standing  in  a  corner 
of  the  lower  hall,  shifting  from  one  foot  to  the  other, 
and  fumbling  with  his  hat.  And  he  looked  at  the  doctor 
with  such  unhappy  dog-like  eyes  that  Edwards'  ill-will 
vanished  in  an  instant.  He  slipped  his  hand  through 
Franzl's  arm,  and  they  walked  up  and  down  together. 

To  this  day  Franzl  can  never  pass  through  that  hall, 
and  hear  the  sound  of  the  children's  voices  at  their 
lessons  behind  the  door  of  the  schoolroom,  without  feel- 
ing anew  the  grip  of  the  ever-deepening  fear  which  lay 
over  all  things  on  that  May  morning  after  the  accident 
in  the  mountains. 

"Yes,  there's  grave  danger,"  he  heard  Edwards  say. 
"I'll  try  to  explain  it  to  you.  Something  has  burst 
inside  her  head,  or  something  is  pressing  on  her  brain,  on 
the  machine  we  think  with.  Just  over  the  right  temple 
— here — I  can  feel  a  soft  spot,  as  if  the  bone,  that 's  very 
thin  just  there,  had  been  crushed  in, — broken  into  little 
pieces  perhaps.  One  of  these  splinters  may  be  doing  the 
mischief.  More  likely  it's  a  broken  blood-vessel,  deep 
down  somewhere  inside.  In  either  case,  I  'm  helpless. ' ' 

"Helpless!" 

Franzl  gazed  dumbly  at  his  companion:  there  was 
doubt  and  suspicion  in  his  eyes. 

This  man,  whom  his  people  revered  as  a  god,  with 
power  over  life  and  death,  and  whom  he  had  once 
hated  because  of  this  very  halo  of  almost  divine  strength, 
before  which  even  his  best-beloved  had  bowed  down, — 
this  man  helpless !  It  could  not  be.  His  old  antagonism 
flared  out  suddenly.  He  shook  Edwards'  hand  from  his 
arm. 

"You  want  her  to  die,"  he  cried,  his  open  twitching 
fingers  held  menacingly  close  to  Edwards'  throat.  "You 
can't  have  her  yourself,  so  you  won't  help.  I  know. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      193 

But  if  she  dies,  I'll — I'll  send  you  after  her.  And  then 
I'll  follow  you  hot-foot  to  hell,  I  will." 

Edwards  took  the  two  threatening  hands  gently  by  the 
wrists  and  laid  them  on  his  shoulders,  so  that  Franzl's 
furious  eyes  looked  straight  into  his  own. 

"You  were  my  friend  once,"  he  said.  "And  you  may 
kill  me,  if  you  like.  Perhaps  that  would  be  the  easier 
way  out.  Life  has  not  been  so  pleasant  that  I  desire 
it  overmuch.  But  you  must  believe  what  I  say.  Here, 
I  can  do  nothing." 

Then,  in  a  voice  that  shook  with  restrained  emotion, 
he  added — 

"Man,  man,  don't  you  see  that  I'd  cut  off  my  right 
hand  to  save  her, — that  I'm  in  torment  because  I  can't 
help." 

And  in  that  moment  Franzl  saw. 

Here,  face  to  face  with  him,  was  no  longer  that  god 
of  power,  of  whom  he  had  been  so  jealous;  no  longer  a 
being  so  high  that  he  could  not  reach  him,  even  with 
his  hatred  and  his  knife:  but  only  a  man  like  himself, 
— a  companion — a  friend.  His  friend.  And  both  of  them 
helpless  in  the  presence  of  death. 

He  swayed  forward  and  hid  his  face  for  an  instant 
on  Edwards'  shoulder.  After  all,  he  was  scarcely  more 
than  a  boy. 

But  in  Thiersee  even  boys  do  not  cry. 

Franzl's  whole  body  shook.  But  when  he  raised  his 
head  his  eyes  were  dry. 

"It's  my  fault,"  he  said.  "If  I  hadn't  had  those 
murder-thoughts  about  you  she  wouldn't  have  wanted 
to  take  me  up  into  the  hills.  I've  killed  her.  I  might 
just  as  well  have  cut  her  throat.  And  I  love  her  so, — I 
love  her  so. ' ' 

He  turned  away,  wringing  his  hands  in  an  agony  of 
despair. 

' '  God  has  done  it  all  on  purpose, ' '  he  muttered.  ' '  He 
don't  like  it  when  a  man  gets  to  hate  another  man  after 
he's  been  that  man's  friend.  And  it's  no  good  asking 
the  saints  to  help.  God's  too  mad  with  me.  He 
wouldn't  listen  to  a  word  they  said." 


194      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

His  utter  discouragement  was  contagious.  Edwards 
made  an  effort  to  shake  himself  free  of  it. 

"But  she  isn't  dead  yet,"  he  said.  "The  symptoms 
may  change  for  the  better.  It  may  be  only  shock.  Come 
up  with  me  and  see  what  you  think.  It  will  do  you 
good,  and  it  can't  hurt  her  now." 

All  that  was  visible  of  Nani  was  a  white  face  and 
neck  and  two  brown  hands  that  lay  motionless  on  the 
coverlet.  But  she  was  not  unconscious.  When  she  saw 
Franzl,  with  Edwards  standing  at  his  side,  she  smiled 
and  tried  to  speak. 

"I  want  to  dance.  Oh,  please,  I  am  so  dancy — so 
terribly  dancy." 

Franzl 's  face  became  twisted  with  horror.  Pain  and 
the  sight  of  it  he  could  bear,  for  he  knew  it  well;  but 
delirium  was  to  him  something  strange  and  terrible.  He 
stared  at  Edwards. 

"Oh,  she  knows  where  she  is,"  Edwards  explained. 
"But  she's  lost  her  power  of  remembering  words. 
'Dance'  is  one  of  the  few  she  has  left." 

He  followed  the  direction  of  her  eyes,  took  up  the 
glass  of  water  at  which  she  was  gazing,  and  gave  her  to 
drink.  She  sighed  contentedly. 

' '  I  had  such  a  dance, ' '  she  murmured. 

"We  were  going  to  dance  that  very  night,"  whispered 
Franzl,  and  his  eyes  brimmed  now  with  sudden  tears. 
"We'd  just  been  talking  about  it  when  the — the  aval- 
anche came." 

"Now  watch,"  Edwards  said,  "and  you'll  see  what's 
wrong  with  her." 

He  took  out  a  pencil  and  held  it  in  front  of  Nani's 
eyes. 

"Nani,  what's  this?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"Have  you  ever  seen  such  a  thing  before? — Yes. 
Well,  what  is  it? — Can't  you  remember  its  name? — Is 
it  a  fork?— No.— A  glass?— No.— A  watch ?— No.— Is  it 
a  pencil? " 

Nani's  face  lighted  up. 

"Yes,"  she  whispered,  "a  pencil." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      195 

Edwards  pushed  Franzl  forward. 

"And  who  is  this,  Nani?" 

Again  the  girl  shook  her  head. 

"But  you  know  him? — Yes,  of  course. — Only  you  can't 
give  him  his  name " 

Franzl  covered  his  twitching  face  with  his  hat. 

"Ach,  alle  Sieben  Nothelfer!"  he  sobbed.  "She 
doesn't  remember  even  my  name." 

"Is  it  your  mother? — No. — The  Herr  Lehrer?— 

No.— Is  it  Franzl? " 

Again  Nani  smiled ;  again  her  eyes  lit  up ;  and  her  lips 
formed  the  word  over  and  over  again. 

' '  Franzl — Franzl — Franzl. ' ' 

Franzl  would  have  cast  himself  down  on  his  knees 
beside  the  bed,  but  Edwards  held  him  back  gently  and 
then  drew  him  aside. 

"You  see,"  he  said,  "there's  something  pressing  on 
the  part  of  her  thinking-machine  that  puts  the  right 
names  to  the  right  things.  That  part  isn't  working. 
And  the  thing  that 's  pressing  there  will,  I  'm  afraid,  soon 
begin  to  press  on  other  parts  too. — And  I'm  helpless." 

"Why  don't  you  open  her  head  and  take  the  thing 
out  ?  You  made  me  a  new  ear. ' ' 

Edwards'  glance  fell  before  Franzl 's  insistent  eyes. 

"It  would  be  too  big  a  risk,"  he  said.  "I'm  not  a 
surgeon.  And  I  've  no  experience  in  what  you  call '  open- 
ing heads.'  I  might  write  to  Innsbruck.  The  Herr 
Professor,  out  of  kindness,  might  send  an  assistant. 
Only,  Franzl,  I'm  sure  he  wouldn't  get  here  in  time." 

"She'd  be  dead?" 

"Perhaps  not  dead.  But  the  operation  would  come 
too  late.  The  thinking-machine — the  thing  that  makes 
Nani  our  Nani — would  be  so  spoiled  by  then  that  even 
the  biggest  professor  couldn't  help." 

"But  it  might  not  be  spoiled — quite." 

Edwards  caught  Franzl  by  the  shoulders  and  pushed 
him  out  of  the  room.  Facing  him  in  the  hall  outside, 
his  self-control  broke  down  in  the  stress  of  his  excite- 
ment, and  he  spoke  in  hurried  disconnected  sentences. 

"Can't  you  see  what's  driving  me  crazy,  idiot?    If  I 


196      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

wait,  she  may  get  well,  somehow.  Only  that's  a  very 
long  chance.  Her  pulse  is  slowing  down  with  every 

hour.  And  if  I  try  to  do  anything But  that's 

out  of  the  question,  I  shouldn't  dare." 

" You  wouldn't  dare!" 

Franzl's  self-possession  had  suddenly  returned  to  him. 
He  understood  now.  There  was  a  fighting  chance.  A 
chance  to  dare.  He  straightened  up ;  he  seemed  to  tower 
above  Edwards. 

"I  wish  I  had  a  chance  to  dare — for  her.  But  I 
haven't.  So  you Ve  got  to — got  to!  Understand.  And 
you'd  better  lose  no  time.  I'll  fetch  Nani's  mother." 

Edwards  went  back  quickly  into  the  sick-room.  He 
bent  over  the  bed,  consulted  the  pulse-  and  temperature- 
chart  that  he  had  roughly  drawn  up  the  night  before. 
There  was  no  doubt  of  it — she  was  worse.  Every  symp- 
tom pointed  to  increasing  pressure  somewhere  on  the 
brain.  And  the  chances  were  that  the  danger  came  from 
that  indentation  in  the  region  of  the  temporal  bone.  If 
he  could  lift  those  broken  fragments  out, — if  he 
dared 

He  stood  despairingly  at  the  window,  looking  down, 
as  he  had  looked  so  often,  at  the  sharp  reflection  of  the 
snow-capped  mountains  in  the  waters  of  the  little  lake. 
And,  as  if  across  the  background  of  his  consciousness, 
there  passed  a  sharply  outlined  picture  of  himself  stand- 
ing by  the  notice-board  outside  the  porter's  lodge  in 
Innsbruck,  listening  inattentively  to  the  little  Freiherr 
von  Atems,  who  looked  like  a  Jew,  and  who  was  in  a 
state  of  transcendent  joy  because  he  was  going  home. 
He  seemed  to  hear  the  voice  of  the  merry,  black-bearded 
little  man  telling  him  about, — about  an  operation, — an 
operation  he  had  just  seen. 

' '  Oh,  he 's  got  a  lot  of  chic  yet,  old  Schroeder  has. ' ' 

And  then  the  description !  The  skin-incision ;  the  lift- 
ing of  the  crushed  temporal  bone ;  the  covering  of  the  ex- 
posed brain  with — with With  what?  Oh  yes,  he 

remembered  now.  "With  a  piece  from  the  fascia  lata  of 
the  thigh. 

A  transplantation ! 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      197 

But  that  was  too  difficult.  Out  of  the  question.  He 
had  seen  one  such  operation  long  ago.  But  to  do  it 
himself 

Mechanically  he  went  to  the  closet  where  he  kept 
his  instruments  and  selected  what  seemed  necessary.  He 
had  not  all  the  proper  tools.  But  the  thing  could  be 
done  by  a  skillful  experienced  hand. 

He  lighted  the  flame  under  the  vessel  in  which  he 
usually  sterilized  his  instruments. 

A  skillful  experienced  hand ! 

And,  looking  down  at  his  own,  he  saw  that  the  fingers 
were  cramped  and  trembling. 

It  was  impossible.     He  could  not  do  it. 

Then  Franzl  appeared  with  Frau  Speckbacher.  He 
could  not  face  them,  for  he  knew  well  enough  that 
Franzl  would  already  have  explained  the  situation.  So 
he  temporized. 

"I'm  hoping,"  he  said  lamely,  "that  all  may  go  well 
without  our  running  the  risk  of  an  operation." 

Then,  as  Franzl  stared  distrustfully  at  him,  he 
added — 

"We'll  get  everything  in  readiness.  I'll  wait  an 
hour  or  two  yet.  Then,  if  necessary,  we  can  begin  at 
once." 

Quickly,  with  an  effort  to  appear  sure  of  himself, 
he  gave  his  two  companions  such  directions  as  were 
possible.  They  would  use  his  writing-table,  and  could 
boil  some  old  sheets  to  enclose  the  field  of  the  opera- 
tion. He  thanked  heaven  that  he  had  a  good  supply 
of  aseptic  surgical  gauze.  And  there  was  plenty  of 
sterilized  silk  in  the  tiny  vials  of  carbolic  acid. 

And  iodine, — he  would  need  lots  of  that.  He  must 
sterilize  a  big  field  over  the  fascia  lata  of  the  thigh. 

Here  again  his  nerve  failed  him. 

That  transplantation  of  connecting-tissue!  Never 
would  he  be  able  to  do  that. 

And  a  bad  patch  of  septic  fascia  sewed  into  the  dura 
mater  of  the  brain !  Why,  it  was  murder ! 

His  hand  began  to  shake  again. 

And  then  he  caught  sight  of  his  half-filled  bottle  of 


198      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

whisky.  While  the  others  hastened  softly  to  and  fro 
he  slipped  it  into  his  pocket,  hurried  downstairs,  and 
sat  down  on  a  bench  in  the  garden.  He  leaned  back 
against  the  sun-warmed  wall. 

"What  was  the  matter  with  him?  Except  in  Kassian's 
case  he  had  hitherto  worked  with  an  accuracy  and  a  self- 
assurance  that  had  never  faltered. 

But  this, — this  was  a  case  in  which  the  patient  might 
well  die  under  his  knife.  How  much  simpler  to  let  her 
die  quietly, — if  die  she  must.  No  one  would  blame  him 
then ;  no  one  who  understood.  A  country  doctor  couldn  't 
be  expected  to  do  complicated  operations  on  the  brain. 
Whereas,  if  he  did  try  and  failed,  his  colleagues  would 
have  just  cause  for  complaint.  The  facts  would  be 
known,  would  be  commented  upon,  brought  into  the 
courts  perhaps. 

An  unlicensed  practitioner  daring  to  open  a  patient's 
skull! 

No.     It  was  impossible. 

A  shadow  fell  across  him.     Franzl  stood  waiting. 

"I  think  she's  got  worse  these  last  few  minutes," 
he  said.  "I  wanted  to  make  her  say  my  name 
again.  But  she  can't  speak.  She  just  looks. — Come. 
Hurry." 

Edwards  leaned  forward,  looking  down  at  the  ground. 

"I'm  not  going  to  risk  an  operation  after  all,"  he 
burst  out.  "If  I  make  a  mess  of  it,  as  I  probably  shall, 
I  '11  have  killed  her.  And  besides,  I  've  just  realized  that 
such  an  operation  is  out  of  the  question  without  proper 
assistance.  You  'd  be  no  good.  You  're  not  used  to  such 
things.  Neither  is  Frau  Speckbacher.  No  matter  how 
able  a  surgeon  I  might  be,  I  couldn 't  do  the  work  single- 
handed. — You  say  she 's  worse.  All  the  more  reason  then 
for  letting  her  alone. ' ' 

Franzl  took  Edwards  firmly  by  the  throat  and  forced 
his  head  up. 

"I  don't  want  to  hurt  you,"  he  said  between  his 
teeth.  ' '  'Cause  you  '11  need  all  the  cleverness  you  've  got 
in  your  clever  head  and  hands.  But  you  said  before  that 
there  was  a  chance  if  a  fellow  dared  to  take  it.  I  told 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      199 

you  you'd  got  to  dare.  And  if  you  won't  come  I'll 
carry  you/'' 

" Look  at  that." 

Edwards  stretched  out  his  hand.  It  was  shaky  and 
uncertain. 

"Take  a  drink,  then,"  persisted  Franzl,  uncorking  the 
whisky-bottle  that  stood  by  Edwards'  side.  "Once 
you've  opened  her  head  right,  you  can  fall  down  dead 
drunk  if  you  like. — Why,"  he  added,  with  sudden  sur- 
prise, "I  thought  you  were  a  man." 

Edwards  pushed  aside  the  bottle  that  Franzl  pressed 
to  his  lips.  The  smell  revolted  him;  he  had  scarcely 
taken  a  single  swallow  of  the  stinging  spirits. 

' '  No, ' '  he  said, ' '  I  will  not  come.  You  're  only  a  child, 
and  you  shan't  force  me  to  do  murder  at  your  bid- 
ding." 

"But  she '11  die." 

"I  daresay." 

"Then  you  must  come. — You  must." 

Franzl  seized  Edwards'  arm  and  tried  to  pull  him 
up  from  the  bench.  Edwards  shrank  away,  resisting, 
furiously  angry. 

As  they  struggled  together  a  voice  spoke  behind  them, 
— a  calm,  clear-toned  voice  that  spoke  in  broken  German 
with  a  strange  accent. 

' '  Shame !  Drunk  and  fighting  so  early !  In  front 
of  the  schoolhouse  too.  A  nice  example  for  the  children. 
— Please  tell  me  where  I  can  find  the  Herr  Doktor." 

Franzl  stood  aside  while  Edwards  rose  unsteadily  to 
his  feet. 

She  seemed  to  have  come  out  of  the  sun  itself;  and 
this  sense  of  her  never  left  him.  It  was  not  merely 
the  coppery  gold  of  her  hair,  nor  the  slim  strength  of 
her  figure  in  its  tight-fitting  riding  habit;  nor  even 
the  sun  behind  her,  shining  in  his  eyes.  It  was  some- 
thing more, — some  sense  of  new  victorious  life  and  beauty 
that  spoke  to  him  through  her. 

' '  I  am  the  Herr  Doktor, ' '  he  stammered. 

Then,  as  he  followed  the  indignant  pointing  of  her 
gloved  finger  at  the  overturned  whisky-bottle  and  caught 


200      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

the  sharp  odor  of  spirits  that  permeated  the  warm  air,  he 
dropped  back  helplessly  on  the  bench. 

And  he  saw  a  look  of  intense  disappointment  and  dis- 
tress sweep  across  her  face,  like  the  "Foehn"  that  dis- 
torts the  reflection  of  the  mountains  when  it  blows  across 
the  lake. 

"Ah,"  she  said.    " Ah,  indeed.    Thank  you." 

And  she  turned  to  go. 

Then  something  gave  her  pause.  She  stopped  and 
beckoned  Franzl  towards  her.  He  stood  before  her  awk- 
wardly, and  she  looked  him  over  slowly  from  head  to 
foot. 

"You  do  not  seem  so  very  drunk,"  she  said  at  last. 
Then,  in  a  lower  tone,  with  a  nod  over  her  shoulder 
towards  Edwards.  "Is  he — is  he — often — like — like  this 
—now?" 

"Like  this!" 

"Yes.    Drunk, — stupefied, — unfit  for  his  work!" 

Franzl  threw  back  his  head  with  a  snort  of  rage. 

Who  was  this  strange  person,  in  these  strange  gar- 
ments, who  interfered  with  him  and  dared  to  speak  evil 
of  his  friend? 

He  began  to  protest  angrily,  to  explain.  The  deep, 
guttural  vowels  of  his  dialect  sounded  as  rough  as  the 
scraping  of  a  rusty  saw. 

The  "strange  person"  gazed  at  him,  puzzled. 

"I  don't  understand  a  word  you're  saying.  Can't  he 
speak  to  me  himself,  your  Herr  Doktor?  Or  is  he  too — 
too ?" 

Edwards  had  come  slowly  forward.  An  intense  shame 
seemed  to  strangle  the  words  in  his  throat.  He  was  the 
last  man  in  the  world  to  make  excuses,  to  defend  him- 
self. Nevertheless  he  felt  that  somehow  he  must  keep 
this  woman  from  leaving  him.  What  she  thought  mat- 
tered nothing.  Only  she  must  stay.  She  who  had  come 
to  him  out  of  the  sun. 

"I  do  not  know  how  I  can  be  of  service  to  you,"  he 
said,  laying  a  hand  on  Franzl 's  shoulder.  "But  my 
friend  Franzl,  here,  has  only  been  trying  to  explain  to 
you  that  as  I  had  no  courage  inside  me  he  was  trying 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      201 

to  put  some  into  me  from  a  bottle.  Unfortunately  with- 
out much  success. — We  have  had  an  accident ;  a  fatal  one, 
I  fear.  And  he  thinks  that,  if  I  will,  I  can  bid  Death 
keep  his  hands  off.  That  I  am  like  Nebuchadnezzar. 
You  remember  how  it  goes  in  the  Bible,  'Whom  he  would, 
he  slew ;  and  whom  he  would,  he  kept  alive. '  ' 

The  look  of  disappointment  on  the  stranger's  face 
had  given  place  to  an  expression  of  curious  interest. 

"Tell  me  about  it,"  she  said. 

Briefly,  as  concisely  as  he  could,  he  told  her.  Once 
or  twice  she  interrupted  him. 

"I  don't  understand  all  these  German  technical  terms. 
What  is  the  English  equivalent?" 

He  answered  in  English.  And,  although  he  did  not 
realize  it,  he  continued  speaking  in  his  own  tongue. 

When  he  had  finished  she  laid  her  riding-whip  aside, 
and,  to  his  surprise,  took  off  her  hat  and  smoothed  down 
her  hair. 

"I  know  something  of  operative  surgery,"  she  said. 
"At  home  I  was  at  the  head  of  our  Red  Cross  work  for 
a  time.  And  I  put  in  a  whole  year  in  the  surgical 
wards.  If  you  can  use  me " 

Edwards  jumped  to  his  feet  and  stood  beside  her, 
radiant. 

Yes,  it  was  not  mere  imagination;  she  had  come  to 
him  out  of  the  sun. 

He  wasted  no  words. 

"Thanks,"  he  said.  "I  will  show  you  what  you  have 
to  do." 

And  with  each  step  towards  the  house  at  her  side  he 
felt  his  old  confidence  return,  felt  the  full  measure  of 
his  knowledge  well  up  within  him,  and  knew  that  he 
had  come  into  his  manhood  once  again. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

WHEN  the  final  touch  had  been  given  to  the  bandages, 
Edwards  looked  up  from  the  curious  round  crown,  cut 
out  of  cardboard,  that  protected  the  wound  in  Nani's 
head,  and  met  the  smile  of  the  woman  who  had  stood  so 
close  to  him  during  the  last  two  hours. 

How  quiet  she  had  been!  Yet  so  ever  ready.  With 
such  a  marvelous  power  of  seeming  to  know  what  he 
wanted  and  when. 

She  had  followed  his  thought  as  he  operated,  abreast 
of  his  thought,  ahead  of  his  hands,  so  that  often,  before 
he  had  time  to  ask  for  some  needed  instrument,  it  had 
been  placed  squarely  in  his  grasp.  There  had  been 
some  bad  moments;  many  of  them.  But  not  once  had 
she  shown  the  slightest  tremor,  not  once  had  ill-sup- 
pressed excitement  marred  the  placid  perfection  of  her 
service. 

"I'm  afraid,"  said  Edwards,  "that  I  swore  at  you 
twice." 

"Three  times." 

Then  they  both  laughed. 

"Lucky  the  dura  wasn't  injured,"  Edwards  went  on. 
"I  should  never  have  had  nerve  enough  to  take  that 
strip  from  the  thigh  to  cover  it  with. ' ' 

' '  Oh  yes,  you  would, ' '  she  answered. 

Edwards  laughed  again.  That  was  true:  he  would 
have.  With  her  to  help. 

Nani  was  still  under  the  effect  of  the  anaesthetic. 
But  the  pulse  was  stronger  already.  Without  a  doubt, 
now  that  the  crushed  temporal  bone  had  been  lifted 
from  the  brain  and  patched  together,  the  symptoms  of 
internal  pressure  would  cease.  She  would  recover.  Ed- 
wards felt  sure, — sure. 

"And  now,"  he  said,  as  he  drew  off  his  rubber  gloves 

202. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      203 

and  untied  the  white  operating-tunic  with  its  splotches 
of  dried  red  blood,  "now  we'll  go  and  eat.  I  am  most 
immensely  hungry.  And  afterwards  we'll  talk." 

It  seemed  strange  to  him  that  he  was  not  more  curious, 
that  a  thousand  questions  did  not  force  their  way  to  his 
lips.  But  he  was  content  merely  to  have  her  there.  Per- 
haps he  dreaded  lest  an  undue  curiosity  might  send  her 
back  again  from  whence  she  had  come :  into  the  sun.  At 
any  rate  he  asked  no  questions.  He  talked,  however; 
talked  incessantly.  Told  her  about  his  tiny  "Clinic"; 
took  her  on  tiptoe  past  Nani's  bed  into  the  adjoining 
room,  and  introduced  her  to  Toni  and  to  little  Helena. 

The  children  looked  at  her  with  misty  eyes  of  wonder. 
It  pleased  him  to  see  it ;  for  he  wondered  too. 

Then  down  they  went  through  the  lower  hall,  and  he 
opened  the  door  of  the  schoolroom  only  just  a  little  to 
let  her  have  a  glimpse  of  Joncke,  who  should  have  been 
at  his  dinner  long  since,  but  who  was  sitting  with  three 
of  his  stupidest  pupils,  helping  them  with  some  task 
they  had  not  understood.  He  even  took  her  into  the 
kitchen,  empty  now,  for  Frau  Speckbacher  was  watching 
beside  Nani  upstairs.  But  one  room  he  did  not  show 
her :  Nani 's  little  bedroom,  that  looked  out  on  the  garden. 

Standing  on  the  steps  of  the  schoolhouse,  he  pointed 
out  to  her  the  various  divisions  of  the  village  below 
them, — the  church,  the  ' '  Widum, ' '  the  little  lake  with  its 
reflections  of  the  snow-covered  mountains. 

She  said  but  little;  she  let  him  talk.  For  she  was  a 
wise  woman,  even  though  she  had  not  come  out  of  the 
sun,  really. 

He  insisted  on  her  taking  dinner  with  him.  They 
walked  together  down  the  hill  to  the  "Drachen."  The 
priest  and  the  Biirgermeister  had  finished  their  meal 
long  since.  Father  Mathias  was  gone;  the  Biirger- 
meister was  having  his  after-dinner  nap.  So  Edwards 
and  his  companion  had  the  little  table  all  to  themselves. 

The  Drachen-Wirt  was  a  man  of  great  self-control. 
An  innkeeper  learns  to  keep  his  thoughts  to  himself  if 
he  is  to  please  all  his  guests.  And  to  the  Drachen-Wirt 's 
credit  be  it  said,  that  he  laid  an  extra  place  opposite 


204      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Edwards,  and  served  the  meal  himself  without  a  twitch 
of  his  lined  red  face.  But  once  out  of  sight  inside  the 
house  he  stole  to  the  window  that  overlooked  Edwards' 
table  and  glued  his  little  pig's-eye  to  the  pane,  scratch- 
ing the  back  of  his  head  meanwhile  and  whistling  softly 
through  the  gap  in  his  false  teeth. 

For  all  that  Edwards  would  have  heard  he  might 
have  whistled  as  shrilly  as  the  raggedest  boy  in  Joncke  's 
school.  And  he  might  have  served  the  vilest  dinner  in 
his  kitchen, — and  that  would  have  been  very  vile  in- 
deed ! — it  would  have  made  no  difference.  For  although 
he  did  not  realize  it,  Edwards  had  found  something  that 
he  had  been  longing  for  for  years,  and  that  he  did  not 
recognize  now  that  it  was  given  him, — a  breath  of  the 
atmosphere  in  which  he  had  been  born;  someone  who 
meant  "home." 

"This  is  rotten  soup-meat,"  he  remarked  genially,  as 
he  watched  his  guest's  hopeless  efforts  to  cut  into  the 
brown  rough  slab  on  her  plate.  "Looks  like  old  blot- 
ting-paper. You'll  never  manage  it  with  that  knife. 
Let  me  have  a  try." 

He  took  out  his  heavy  pocket-knife,  and  with  the  sharp- 
est blade  separated  the  meat  into  square  chunks. 

"You'll  have  to  chew  hard,  you  know,"  he  added, 
"But  that's  no  misfortune. — And  after  all,  what's 
food!" 

While  he  was  busy  cutting  his  own  portion  his  guest 
slyly  gave  her  chunks,  one  by  one,  to  the  landlord's 
prowling  puppy,  who  snuggled  blissfully  at  her  feet. 

At  last,  as  the  reaction  of  his  exciting  morning  died 
down,  Edwards'  speech  grew  less  voluble.  He  pushed 
his  plate  aside,  and  filled  two  of  the  chipped  glasses 
with  the  bright  red  stream  of  the  Drachen-Wirt 's  very 
watery  wine.  Then  he  held  his  glass  towards  his  guest. 
Their  glasses  clinked  together;  their  hands  touched  too. 
And— 

"Prosit!"  he  said.  "Now,  where  do  you  come  from? 
How  may  I  begin  to  thank  you  ? — And  who  are  you,  any- 
way?" 

She  took  a  long  deep  draught  from  the  glass,  not  as 


.THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      205 

a  woman  sips,  but  as  a  comrade — a  thirsty  comrade, 
Edwards  thought — who  pledges  his  friend  in  the  cup  of 
fellowship. 

"I  rode  over  from  Schloss  Liebenegg  early  this  morn- 
ing," she  said,  but  so  diffidently  and  in  such  uncertain 
tones  that  Edwards  was  conscious  at  once  that  she  had 
no  desire  to  answer  his  questions.  "We  had  a  letter 
about  you  from  the  Herr  Professor,  and  his  wife  wanted 
me  to — to " 

"Oh,  I  know  who  you  are,  then,"  Edwards  interposed. 
His  one  dominating  idea  was  to  set  her  at  her  ease. 
While  he  had  talked  she  had  seemed  so  contented,  so 
ready  to  stay  with  him.  But  at  his  questioning  she  had 
become  restless.  He  thought  he  understood,  and  hast- 
ened to  answer  himself  the  questions  he  had  asked. 

"You're  Miss  Sparks.  I  ought  to  have  realized  that 
at  once.  I  was  told,  in  Innsbruck,  that  you  often  spend 
your  summers  with  the  Schroeders  as  a — as  a  sort  of  a 
companion." 

How  stupid  of  me,  he  thought.  She's  a  lady,  and  for 
the  sake  of  her  daily  bread  has  to  be  dependent  on  others. 
No  doubt  the  Frau  Professor  is  hard  to  get  along  with. 
She  hates  the  life ;  she 's  glad  of  a  day  away  from  it  all. 
And  here  I  am  chattering  to  her  about  what  she  wants 
most  to  forget. 

' '  I  suppose, ' '  he  went  on  aloud,  as  she  made  no  reply, 
"I've  often  met  you  on  the  street.  But  I'm  so  absent- 
minded  I'd  pass  my  own  mother  without  recognizing 
her.  Of  course,  though,  I  've  heard  of  you  and  of  your — 
your  plucky  fight. — Forgive  me  for  speaking  of  it. — Of 
how  you  turned  to  and  fended  for  yourself  when  you 
were  left  alone  after  your  father's  sudden  death.  He 
was  in  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  wasn't  he?  Pensioned 
and  on  his  way  home,  when  you  and  he  stopped  over  in 

Innsbruck  for  a  month,  and  he I  say,  I  oughtn  't  to 

talk  about  these  things.  But  I  wanted  you  to  know  that 
'you  weren't  quite  a  stranger  to  me." 

"Oh,  I  don't  mind,"  she  answered.  And  she  settled 
back  in  her  chair  with  such  evident  intention  of  remain* 
ing  there,  her  voice  had  become  again  so  clear  and  self- 


206      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

assured,  that  Edwards  inwardly  complimented  himself 
upon  his  tactfulness. 

"English-speaking  people  ought  to  hang  together  in  a 
strange  country,"  Edwards  went  on,  clasping  his  hands 
and  leaning  towards  her  across  the  table.  "And  I'd 
have  come  to  see  you.  But, — well,  I  'm  a  procrastinating 
wretch,  you  see.  And  I  hadn't  much  time.  I  did  send 
you  one  pupil,  though.  You  remember  him,  don 't  you  ? 
Little  von  Atems.  He  said  you  were  a  first-rate  teacher. 
"What  do  you  think  of  him?" 

He  paused.  But  speechlessness  seemed  again  to  have 
fallen  upon  her.  She  shrugged  her  shoulders  slightly, 
smiling  with  apparent  effort. 

Now  I've  mucked  it  all,  said  Edwards  to  himself. 
Of  course  she  doesn't  like  to  be  reminded  of  having 
to  teach  that  stupid  little  jackass.  So  he  added  has- 
tily— 

"No  doubt  you've  seen  me  in  Innsbruck.  It's  such  a 
tiny  place." 

After  a  moment's  hesitation,  with  the  same  apparent 
effort,  came  a  little  nod  of  assent. 

Edwards  became  confused.  He  drank  off  half  a  glass 
of  his  wine.  Silence  settled  down. 

At  last  she  picked  up  her  riding-crop. 

"I  must  be  going  back  to  Liebenegg." 

"But  you'll  come  again?" 

"If  it's  possible." 

"Perhaps  I  could  ride  over  to  you.  I  want  to  seo 
the  Herr  Professor  and " 

She  interrupted  him  suddenly.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
thrown  off  something  that  was  oppressing  her ;  as  if  she 
had  come  to  an  abrupt  decision. 

"No,  don't  do  that.  I  mean,  I  wouldn't  come  now, 
for  the  Professor  isn't  there.  Besides,  Frau  Schroeder 
has  guests,  Americans,  mother  and  son,  and  she's  out 
with  them  almost  all  day.  That's  why,"  she  added, 
with  an  uncertain  laugh,  "I've  so  much  time  to  myself. 
It  will  be  a  pleasure  to  ride  over  again." 

"Soon?" 

"Why  not?    I  must  have  a  look  at  Nani.     That's 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      207 

her  name,  isn't  it? Will  you  ask  that  boy  there  to 

bring  my  horse.  I  left  it  in  the  inn  stable." 

The  "boy"  in  question  happened  to  be  Franzl,  who 
had  wandered  down  from  the  schoolhouse,  bursting  with 
good  news.  But  he  went  off  on  a  run  at  Miss  Sparks' 
command.  And  silence  fell  again  between  Edwards  and 
his  guest, — an  uncomfortable  pause  that  neither  seemed 
able  to  break,  and  that  only  ended  when  Franzl  appeared 
from  behind  the  inn,  leading  a  light  sorrel  mare,  whose 
beauty  moved  him  to  strokings  and  whisperings  of  rap- 
ture. Edwards  knew  nothing  about  horses;  but  he  felt 
that  this  was  a  wonderful  animal  indeed, — a  proper 
mount  for  her  who  had  come  riding  out  of  the  sun. 

He  hung  back  slightly.  He  feared  she  would  ask 
him  to  help  her  mount,  and  he  did  not  know  how. 

To  his  surprise  she  did  not  ask  him  at  all,  and,  per- 
versely enough,  he  felt  hurt  when  he  saw  her  take 
Franzl 's  knee  and  hand  to  reach  her  saddle.  Once  there, 
she  beckoned  to  him. 

He  came  close  to  her  side,  while  Franzl  stood  at  the 
mare's  head  rubbing  his  cheek  against  her  velvety  nose 
and  murmuring  sweet  nothings  of  admiration  into  her 
twitching  ear. 

"Professor  Schroeder  is  much  exercised  over  your 
whereabouts,"  she  said,  bending  down  towards  him. 
"He  feels  that  you  have  treated  him  somewhat  thought- 
lessly. It  is  more  than  three  months  since  he  bade  you 
good-by  in  Innsbruck,  and  he  had  no  letter  from  you 
until  a  few  days  ago.  We  had  no  idea  you  were  in 
Thiersee  at  all." 

Edwards  made  haste  to  explain  the  miscarrying  of 
his  first  letter.  He  blamed  himself  for  having  taken 
so  long  in  sending  the  second. 

"But  how  did  you  get  here?"  she  asked,  a  trace  of 
suspicion  in  her  voice.  "Why  didn't  you  pass  through 
Kufstein?  For  weeks  we  asked  constantly  for  you  at 
all  the  hotels." 

"But  I  was  in  Kuf stein — at  the  'Goldener  Schwann' 
— for  a  night.  Then  I  walked  in.  'Twas  early  in 
March.  My,  but  the  roads  were  bad!" 


208      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"You  walked  in!"  she  repeated,  then  added  abruptly, 
"But  then — then — oh,  was  it  you,  I  wonder,  whom  we 
passed  on  horseback?  It  must  have  been.  You  were 
singing — singing  a  song  I " 

She  broke  off  quickly  and  held  out  her  hand. 

"  It 's  only '  Auf  Wiedersehen, '  "  she  said.  ' '  I  '11  try  to 
be  over  soon  again.  You  might  write. — No,  I  forgot, 
don't.  It  would  take  days  for  a  letter  to  reach  me. 
'Twould  have  to  go  round  by  way  of  Kuf stein.  But  I  '11 
come."  She  picked  up  her  reins,  then  dropped  them 
again.  "I'd  almost  forgotten  something  important.  I 
was  to  give  you  this.  The  Herr  Professor  sent  it.  And 
you're  to  follow  the  directions  it  contains  on  pain  of  his 
grievous  displeasure.  He'll  be  glad  to  hear  that  your 
long  three  months'  silence  was  not  intentional." 

"But  I  explained  how  it  was  in  my  last  letter  to 
him." 

"Yes,  he  got  that;  but  he  didn't  know — he  wasn't 
sure " 

Edwards  lowered  his  eyes  from  hers.  He  understood. 
They  had  not  trusted  him  quite;  were  not  entirely  sure 
of  what  he  had  been  doing  with  himself  during  these  last 
months,  and  she  had  been  sent  over  to  find  out. 

So  it  was  not  out  of  the  sun  that  she  had  come,  but 
from  the  shadows  of  distrust. 

He  looked  up  at  her  again,  and  his  lips  wore  the  old 
twisted  bitter  smile  that  had  become  strange  to  them 
of  late.  She  read  him  easily.  Bending  down  from  her 
saddle,  she  thrust  an  envelope  into  the  upper  pocket  of 
his  coat.  Then  her  hand  rested  for  an  instant  on  his 
shoulder. 

"Don't  let  me  leave  you  as  I  found  you  this  morning. 
And  make  no  mistake.  The  Schroeders  believe  in  you. 
I  want  to  believe,  too.  It's  been  a  hideous  mess  this 
whole  business;  but  it's  not  too  late  to  straighten  it 
out.  Good-by." 

She  spoke  to  her  mare.  It  started  forward,  delighted 
to  be  on  the  road  again,  prancing  daintily  a  little  from 
side  to  side  as  it  bore  its  mistress  up  the  hill.  Edwards 
gazed  after  her,  hoping  that  she  would  turn  her  head 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      209 

before  reaching  the  bend  of  the  highway,  but  she  rode 
straight  on. 

Why  should  she  have  turned  her  head?  She  could 
not  have  seen  him,  for  her  eyes  were  full  of  tears. 

Edwards  and  Franzl  walked  slowly  back  to  the  school- 
house.  At  the  door  Joncke  met  them.  His  sallow  face 
was  radiant. 

"Herr  Doktor,"  he  called — "Herr  Doktor,  she's  bet- 
ter.— When  she  came  out  of  the  chloroform  she  looked 
at  me  and  said,  'I  want  a — a  dance.'  But  then  she  cor- 
rected herself.  'I  mean  a  drink.'  I  was  so  excited. 
I  remembered  what  you'd  told  me.  So  I  held  up  a 
pencil.  'What's  that?'  I  asked.  At  first  she  shook  her 
head;  not  much,  because  you've  bandaged  it  so  she  can't 
move.  But  then  she  said  quite  distinctly,  'Why,  a  pencil 
of  course. '  She 's  going  to  get  well ! ' ' 

When  Joncke  came  at  midnight  to  relieve  Edwards, 
who  had  taken  the  first  watch  at  Nani's  bedside,  he 
met  Frau  Speckbacher  standing  outside  the  bedroom 
door. 

"I'll  be  sitting  a  while  with  you,  Herr  Lehrer,"  she 
said.  "I  can't  sleep  downstairs  with  my  child  lying 
here." 

Then  her  curiosity  finding  sudden  vent,  she  added  in 
a  whisper — 

' '  I  thought  I  'd  be  asking  you  about — about — her. ' ' 

Joncke  nodded.  He  was  even  more  curious  than  the 
good  Frau  herself. 

"He  says  she's  an  English  lady,  poor,  who  gives  les- 
sons for  a  living.  The  Professor  at  Liebenegg  pays  her 
to  stay  with  them  in  the  summer." 

' '  And  does  he — believe  that  ? ' ' 

' '  Believe  it !     Of  course.    Don 't  you  ? ' ' 

Frau  Speckbacher  shrugged  her  fat  shoulders. 

"And  him  so  clever  too!  Why,  Herr  Lehrer,  he  cut 
with  his  scissors  deep  down  into  the  quick  of  my  toe- 
nail,  so  that  I  never  felt  him  a-doing  it.  And  yet  he 
lets  a  woman  put  it  over  him  like  that.  Well,  well;  no 
man's  so  wise,  but  he's  an  ass  to  some  woman." 


210      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

And  with  that  she  opened  the  door  of  the  sick-room 
and  sent  Edwards  off  to  bed. 

He  had  to  sleep  in  Nani's  room.  It  was  stuffy,  so  he 
opened  the  window  on  the  garden  and  lingered  there 
for  a  moment  looking  down  on  the  lake.  A  step  on  the 
gravel  outside  startled  him,  and  a  figure  passed  along 
the  path. 

It  was  Franzl  keeping  watch. 

As  he  neared  Nani's  window  he  turned  his  head. 
With  two  quick  steps  he  crossed  the  intervening 
strip  of  grass  and  stood  below  Edwards,  his  elbows 
on  the  low  window-sill,  his  face  turned  upwards, 
his  eyes  fixed  on  the  doctor's  face.  He  put  out 
an  uncertain  hand  and  groped  for  Edwards '  arm.  Then 
his  fingers  felt  downwards  until  they  had  clasped  his 
friend's  hand  in  his.  Helplessly  he  sought  for  words. 
At  last  he  said — 

"In  the  Play — you  know — I  didn't  want  to  be  St. 
John.  Seemed  too  sissy  for  me.  I'd  rather  been  a 
soldier;  but  I'd  do  it  gladly  now,  if  thou" — (he  fell 
unconsciously  into  the  familiar  use  of  the  pronoun) — 
"if  thou  wert  to  be  the  Master.  Should 'st  rightly  play 
that  part  too.  Art  most  like  what  they  say  He  was — 
to  me." 

Then,  turning  abruptly  away,  he  disappeared  in  the 
shadows. 

Edwards  threw  off  his  clothes  carelessly  and  crept 
into  Nani's  narrow  bed.  For  a  moment,  as  he  was 
falling  asleep,  he  realized  that  he  had  omitted  all  the 
lengthy  ceremonial  with  which  he  was  used  gradually 
to  win  his  way  to  rest.  He  was  free  of  all  that  servi- 
tude. He  saw  it  as  it  really  was, — the  expression  of  a 
weakened  sickly  will.  And  he  knew  too  that,  thanks 
to  something  that  had  come  into  his  life,  he  could  never 
be  in  such  bondage  again. 

Towards  three  o'clock  he  woke  suddenly  to  find  him- 
self lying  in  a  cold  sweat.  His  night  clothes,  even  the 
sheets,  were  drenched. 

He  got  up,  dried  himself,  and  went  to  bed  again, 
shivering. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      211 

As  he  lay  there  a  new  specter  took  form  in  his 
thoughts — a  new  domination  that  he  knew  could  not 
be  cast  out,  for  it  was  not  of  the  mind,  but  of  the 
body.  He  clenched  his  fist,  and  shook  it  as  if  in  the 
specter's  face. 

"I  won't  give  in,"  he  said  aloud.  "You  may  poison 
me  all  you  please;  but  so  long  as  I'm  alive  I  won't  give 
in.  I  will  not. ' ' 

And  then  at  last  he  fell  asleep. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THERE  were  scarcely  four  weeks  left  before  the  two  won- 
derful Sundays  on  which  Thiersee  was  to  give  its  Pas- 
sion-Play. The  little  community  spoke  now  of  nothing 
else. 

Each  new  item  of  news  was  hurried  from  mouth  to 
mouth,  commented  upon,  approved  or  criticised.  The 
parish  priest  was  almost  purple  in  the  face  with  feverish 
activity.  After  many  searchings  of  heart,  he  had  de- 
cided to  post  two  written  notices  of  the  performance — 
one  in  the  chief  hotel  in  Kufstein,  the  other  outside  the 
parish  church  in  Innsbruck.  But  he  knew  that  no  one 
would  see  them.  Even  if  someone  did,  Thiersee  was 
too  inaccessible  to  attract  many  visitors.  And  indeed 
he  did  not  want  people  from  outside — strangers,  infidels, 
heretics.  The  two  or  three  hundred  villagers  from  the 
neighboring  valleys  would  be  audience  enough. 

He  did,  however,  write  to  the  ' '  Bezirkshauptman- 
schaft"1  in  Kufstein,  and  to  the  "Ordinariat"2  of  the 
Prince-Bishop  in  Brixen.  The  community  was  honored 
to  hear  that  one  of  the  gentlemen  from  the  ' '  Hauptman- 
schaft"  would  appear  in  uniform.  But  it  went  quite 
wild  with  excitement  over  the  announcement  that  the 
Prince-Bishop  himself,  but  newly  returned  from  Rome, 
where  he  had  received  his  Pallium  from  the  Pope,  had 
made  known  to  Father  Mathias  his  intention  of  coming 
over  from  Kufstein,  where  he  would  be  making  his  first 
visitation,  if  the  weather  were  good  and  the  roads  passa- 
ble. 

Now  so  short  a  time  remained  for  rehearsals,  that  they 
were  begun  on  Sundays  in  the  morning,  directly  after 
the  nine  o'clock  mass. 

1  The  office  of  the  provincial  government. 

2  The  business  headquarters  of  a  bishop. 

212 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      213 

Edwards  was  going  through  the  opening  lines  of  his 
first  scene,  standing  amidst  the  little  group  of  peasants, 
under  the  great  trees  by  the  lake,  where  the  natural 
stage  was  to  be,  the  sunlight  streaking  his  hair  with 
yellow  gleams  as  it  fell  through  open  spaces  in  the  thick 
leaves.  He  was  in  the  best  of  spirits.  The  one  spectre, 
that  had  of  late  begun  to  haunt  him,  he  had  put  out  of 
his  mind,  even  though  he  knew  that  he  could  not  put  it 
out  of  his  body.  Otherwise,  all  was  well.  Nani  had 
made  remarkable  progress.  The  results  of  the  shock 
and  the  brain  pressure  had  almost  disappeared.  She 
would  be  strong  enough  to  see  the  Play,  even  though 
she  could  not  take  part  in  it.  And  best  of  all,  for  the 
time  being,  his  money  troubles  were  over.  For  the  en- 
velope which  Miss  Sparks  had  thrust  into  his  pocket  had 
contained  a  hundred  crowns,  together  with  a  card  of 
Professor  Schroeder's,  on  which  was  written,  in  the  form 
of  a  physician's  prescription — 

"B. 

Coronarum  Austriacarum.        100.00. 
D.S. — For  instant  external  application." 

And  then,  scribbled  in  one  corner — 

"Have  no  hesitation  about  using  this.  It  isn't  for 
you.  It's  for  Thiersee.  Also,  to  propitiate  the  gods. 

"GYGES." 

The  old  man's  jokes  are  often  too  far-fetched  for  me 
to  grasp,  thought  Edwards.  But  he  had  done  as  the 
note  bade  him,  and  had  felt  no  qualms  of  pride  about  it 
at  all. 

At  the  rehearsal  on  this  particular  Sunday,  he  had 
thrown  his  entire  strength  into  an  effort  to  make  his 
scene  with  Christus  move  naturally.  And,  as  an  unseen 
guest  from  Liebenegg  came  riding  down  to  the  water's 
edge,  her  mare's  hoofs  falling  silently  on  the  soft  grass, 
she  overlooked  the  little  stage  as  from  a  royal  box.  Ed- 
wards had  seated  himself  on  an  old  broken  chair  that 


214      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

threatened  to  collapse  at  any  moment.  Around  him,  the 
young  men  of  the  village  were  gathered,  two  of  them  in 
infantry  uniform,  gray  sober  figures  among  the  bright 
colors  of  their  companions'  Sunday  finery.  And  in 
front  of  him  was  another  group,  in  the  center  of  which 
stood  Joncke,  the  schoolmaster,  his  hands  behind  his 
back  as  if  bound  there,  his  shoulders  stooping  in  a  very 
agonized  delight  of  suffering  and  abasement.  At  some 
distance  from  them  all  was  Father  Mathias,  his  old  black 
straw  hat  far  on  the  back  of  his  head,  waving  sheets  of 
type-written  paper  in  his  little  fat  hands. 

The  listener  on  horseback,  screened  by  the  trees,  heard 
Pilate  begin. 

"Art  thou  a  king,  then?" 

Then  the  sad,  low  voice  of  Christ  answered — 

"Thou  sayest  that  I  am  a  king.  For  this  end  was  I 
born  and — — " 

But  Pilate  had  jumped  up  from  his  rickety  throne. 

"For  heaven's  sake,  Joncke,"  he  interrupted,  "don't 
stand  like  that.  Throw  back  your  shoulders.  Look  me 
in  the  face.  You  are  of  the  line  and  lineage  of  David. 
.And  he  was  a  king,  mind  you.  When  I  see  you  stand- 
ing all  hunched  up  there,  I  don't  feel  like  crucifying 
you  at  all.  I  only  want  to  shake  you.  As  if  I'd  like 
to  say:  'Are  you,' — with  a  sort  of  sneer  on  the  'you' — 
'are  YOU  a  king,  then?'  But  I  don't  say  that.  I— 
Pilate — I'm  impressed.  I  know  you're  a  worker  of 
miracles, — that  you're  a  big  man,  a  man  who  has  stirred 
up  my  province  from  Dan  to  Beersheba.  And  so  I  ask, 
— And  now  let's  do  it  all  again." 

He  sat  down  on  his  wobbly  chair. 

"So  I  ask,  'Art  thou  a  king,  then?'  ' 

On  the  word  "king,"  his  voice  ran  up  a  whole  fifth, 
in  an  interrogation  that  provoked  response. 

But  the  schoolmaster  only  lifted  his  head  slightly ;  his 
voice  was  still  the  voice  of  the  suffering  humble  car- 
penter's son  of  Nazareth. 

"Thou  sayest  that  I  am  a  king." 

In  an  instant,  Pilate  was  up  again.  He  pushed  Joncke 
aside  and  stood  in  his  place.  He  was  no  longer  angry ; 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      215 

he  pleaded  with  the  other,  as  if  reasoning  with  a  dull 
child. 

"Nay,  but  see,  Emil.  So  ist  es  nicht.  Let  me  show 
thee  how  it  should  be  spoken." 

Then,  catching  the  eyes  of  everyone  in  the  group 
fastened  on  him,  he  shook  his  head  and  moved  back  to 
his  seat. 

' '  I  am  sorry, ' '  he  said  quietly,  to  the  little  priest  who 
had  looked  on  in  silence.  "The  Herr  Lehrer  knows 
best.  He  is  playing  the  part,  not  I." 

Once  more  they  went  through  the  scene.  The  patient 
Christ  answered  no  whit  differently  than  before.  But 
Pilate  did  not  stir  from  his  throne.  And  the  scene  was 
played  on  to  the  end. 

They  hurried  through  the  next  one,  and  Pilate  was 
sitting  with  his  head  in  his  hands,  when,  looking  up  to 
answer  his  anxious  wife  in  the  person  of  Gipfl-Marie, 
he  caught  sight  of  a  face,  crowned  as  with  an  aureole 
of  gold,  smiling  down  at  him  through  the  leaves.  A 
sudden  shyness  overcame  him.  He  could  no  longer 
throw  himself  into  the  make-believe  of  the  rehearsal. 
Things  real  and  enduring  were  beckoning  him. 

He  mumbled  hurriedly  through  his  part. 

"You  won't  need  me  any  more,  will  you?"  he  said 
to  the  astonished  priest.  "There  is  someone  waiting,  I 
think,  for  me." 

Then  the  priest  saw  the  new-comer  too.  He  bowed. 
All  the  other  actors  looked  in  the  same  direction,  and 
were,  at  a  stroke,  transformed  into  self-conscious  clumsy 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  soil. 

"Come,  Hochwiirden.  And  you  too,  Emil.  I  want 
to  introduce  you  to  Miss  Sparks,  from  Liebenegg. ' ' 

"To  whom  did  you  say?"  demanded  the  priest.  But 
he  let  Edwards  lead  him  forward  up  the  slope. 

Joncke,  however,  turned  and  fled;  and  as  he  fled,  he 
cast  over  his  shoulder  a  look  of  malice  that  was  not 
Christ-like,  to  say  the  least. 

"Miss  Sparks,  this  is  Father  Mathias.  One  of  the 
best  friends  a  man  ever  had.  He  speaks  English  too." 

The  little  priest  took  off  his  black  straw  hat  with  a 


216      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

flourish;  then  he  raised  the  visitor's  gloved  hand  gal- 
lantly to  his  lips. 

' '  I  am  delighted, ' '  he  said,  ' '  to  make  the  acquaintance 
of  Miss — Miss  Sparks. ' ' 

He  made  a  long  pause  before  the  name.  But  her 
eyes  met  his  fearlessly,  and  priests  are  trained  to  read 
in  others'  faces  the  answers  to  their  unasked  questions. 
"Whatever  it  was  that  he  read  there,  it  satisfied  him. 
With  some  insignificant  excuse,  he  passed  on,  leaving 
the  two  together.  Edwards  took  the  mare  by  the  bridle. 

''You've  come  to  dinner,  haven't  you?"  he  asked. 

"I've  come  with  dinner.  I  can't  say  that  I  think 
much  of  your  cordon-bleu  at  the  'Drachen.'  I'd  a  day 
off,  you  see.  So  I  persuaded  the  Frau  Professor  to  put 
me  up  a  good  luncheon  and  send  it  over  by  a  groom. 
It's  waiting  at  the  inn  now." 

"Then  you  won't  eat  with  me?" 

"Of  course.  But  you  shall  eat  of  mine.  Can't  you 
think  of  some  pleasant  place,  not  too  far  from  the  vil- 
lage, where  we  could  go  together  and  enjoy  what  I've 
brought  ?  Or  are  you  too  busy  ? ' ' 

He  leaned  his  cheek  against  the  mare's  neck  and 
looked  up  at  her. 

"Don't  let's  waste  time  or  words  in  asking  one  an- 
other useless  questions.  You  know  I'm  not  too  busy. 
Otherwise,  you'd  never  have  brought  the  lunch.  Now 
would  you?" 

"I'm  sorry.  But  we  women  have  a  habit  of  filling  in 
odd  seconds  with  inane  remarks.  Especially,  when  we  're 
not  quite  at  our  ease." 

"Not  quite  at  your  ease?"  he  repeated. 

"Well,  not  with  the  whole  village  staring  at  us,  and 
with  you  making  dazzled  eyes  at  me  down  there.  Give 
me  a  hand." 

She  stood  beside  him  now,  the  aureole  of  her  hair  on  a 
level  with  his  eyes, — and  Edwards  was  a  tall  man. 

As  they  walked  through  the  village  side  by  side,  the 
mare  following  quietly  at  the  end  of  the  reversed  bridle, 
the  old  women  who  were  sitting  at  home  peered  out  over 
the  green  herbs  planted  in  boxes  on  their  spotless  win- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      217 

dow-sills,  and  greeted  one  another  across  the  street  with 
dubious  winks  and  disapproving  shrugs ;  for,  although 
Edwards  did  not  guess  it,  not  one  of  these  old  women 
would  have  been  satisfied  to  see  him  mate  with  Venus 
Aphrodite  herself :  she  would  not  have  been  good  enough. 

Edwards  stabled  the  mare,  shouldered  the  lunch-bas- 
ket, and  they  set  off  together,  for  he  knew  at  once  where 
he  wanted  to  go.  They  climbed  the  hill  past  the  school- 
house,  waving  a  greeting  to  little  Helena  at  the  window 
of  the  "Clinic,"  left  the  village  behind,  and  came  out 
at  last  on  the  wooded  brow  of  the  slope,  just  where  the 
road  plunges  into  the  forest  and  makes  a  wide  turn  be- 
fore leaving  Thiersee  behind. 

"There's  the  place  I've  chosen,"  said  Edwards. 

He  pointed  to  the  little  wayside  chapel,  with  its  faded 
painting  of  the  Crucifixion  behind  the  rusty  iron  bars. 
Someone  had  filled  the  tawdry  glass  vases  with  fresh 
wild-flowers.  The  cracked  wooden  bench,  where  the  wor- 
shipers knelt  and  where  Kassian  had  fallen  asleep  on  the 
day  he  had  come  out  to  welcome  Edwards,  still  stood  in 
its  old  place.  He  laid  aside  the  basket,  then  turned  and 
motioned  to  his  companion  to  look  down  into  the  valley 
below. 

It  was  very  quiet.  Not  a  sound  anywhere,  except  the 
far-distant  tinkle  of  a  cow-bell  from  some  unseen  meadow 
where  the  cattle  fed  in  peace.  Behind  them  was  the 
green  of  the  forest;  and  on  either  side  rose  the  high 
peaks  of  the  mountains,  still  snow-capped,  still  dazzling 
in  the  white  of  winter,  and  stretching  on  and  on  until 
they  closed  in  together  on  the  far  horizon;  below,  clus- 
tered about  the  lake,  lay  the  village ;  and  there  was  the 
lake  itself,  with  its  deep  blue  circle  of  water  untouched 
by  the  faintest  breeze — silent — still. 

"Gracious  lady,  are  you  pleased?" 

She  thanked  him  with  a  look,  and  they  fell  to  un- 
packing the  basket,  as  happy  as  two  children  over  the 
unexpected  good  things  that  were  gradually  disclosed. 
Edwards  set  them  all  out  on  the  stone  ledge  before  the 
iron  bars  of  the  little  chapel. 

They  did  look  delicious. 


218      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

If  you  have  been  living  for  months  on  "pig-cutlets" 
and  "calf  soup-meat"  of  a  very  questionable  quality, 
served  on  greasy  dishes  and  eaten  with  forks  that  taste 
tinny,  you  may  well  be  forgiven  a  weakness  for  pate-de- 
foie-gras,  for  cool  lettuce-sandwiches,  for  shining  silver 
and  white  linen, — especially  for  a  marvelous  vegetable 
salad  in  an  old  Dresden  bowl,  and  delightful  little  cold 
custards  in  cut-glass  cups. 

And  there  was  ice,  there  was  mineral  water,  and  a 
flask  of  Scotch  whisky — the  good  thick,  yellow,  liquor 
kind. 

To  begin  with,  a  long  cold  drink. 

He  mixed  one  for  her:  it  was  to  her  taste  as  well  as 
his.  And  then  they  ate  side  by  side  on  the  bench,  bend- 
ing forward  over  the  plates  on  their  knees,  or  reaching 
further  forward  still  towards  the  good  things  arranged 
on  the  stone  ledge  before  them. 

"I'm  very  hungry,"  she  had  said.  "Don't  let's  talk. 
Let's  simply  devote  ourselves  to  our  vile  bodies." 

When  they  had  finished  eating,  and  were  sitting  on 
the  grass  below  the  edge  of  the  road, — when  she  had 
found  in  the  basket  a  cigar  for  him  and  her  own 
cigarette-case, — even  then  they  kept  silence  for  a  long 
time. 

"Would  the  world  be  better,  I  wonder,"  he  said  ab- 
ruptly, "if  everybody  always  had  good  things  to  eat?" 

* 'You'd  be  better,"  she  retorted,  "if  you  had  the 
things  you're  accustomed  to.  That's  the  trouble. 
You  've  fitted  yourself  into  the  lives  of  people  who  don 't 
need  the  same  things  that  you  do.  And  to  stay  with 
them  means  going  hungry — in  more  ways  than  one." 

"We  all  eat  too  much — in  more  ways  than  one." 

"Maybe.  But  hunger  is  dangerous.  Suppose  you've 
had  nothing  to  eat  for  a  whole  day.  You're  ravenous, 
of  course.  Then  suddenly,  in  the  dirt  of  the  road,  you 
see  a  piece  of  bread.  It's  dry  and  it's  old  and  it's  filthy, 
— full  of  disease,  maybe,  for  all  you  know.  Yet  it  seems 
attractive  to  you,  because  you're  hungry.  It's  only  a 
crust.  You  would  turn  from  it  in  disgust  if  you'd  had 
a  hearty  meal;  but  you  pounce  on  it  now,  you  devour 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      219 

it — because  you're  hungry.  That's  the  danger  of  hun- 
ger. Of  more  kinds  of  hunger  than  one." 

"You  are  right,"  he  said.     "I  have  felt  it  so." 

She  turned  quickly  and  laid  her  hand  for  a  moment 
on  his  shoulder,  as  she  had  done  once  before.  It  was 
a  friendly  gesture  that  told  only  of  her  desire  to  help — 
nothing  more. 

There  was  another  long  pause. 

Then  he  began  talking  of  his  work.  And  he  talked 
well. 

He  told  her  of  the  tuberculosis  in  the  village;  of  the 
limping  children — limping  always  on  towards  death; 
and  of  his  dream  of  finding  some  spot  on  a  high  hill 
near  by,  where  he  could  bring  two  or  three  of  the  worst 
cases  to  try  the  effect  of  the  new  open-air  treatment. 
He  told  her  of  what  he  had  read  about  the  wonderful 
cures  that  the  sun — only  the  sun — had  worked  in  Switz- 
erland, at  Lysin,  and  other  places.  He  felt  sure  that 
something  of  the  same  kind  might  be  done  for  this  part 
of  the  world. 

Then,  with  an  abruptness  that  startled  her,  he  stopped 
short  and  threw  away  the  end  of  his  second  cigar. 

A  sense  of  shadow  had  stolen  over  them.  Although 
the  valley  below  was  still  flooded  with  light,  the  sun,  at 
their  backs,  was  already  down  behind  the  mountains. 

' '  How  I  talk ! "  he  said,  helping  her  to  her  feet.  ' '  And 
while  I  babble  life  moves  on,  and  I  have  accomplished 
nothing.  'The  night  cometh  when  no  man  can  work.' 
— I  think  we'd  better  be  going." 

As  he  raised  her,  the  heel  of  her  riding-boot  caught  in 
her  habit  and  she  slipped  feet  foremost  down  the  steep 
slope  over  the  thick  damp  grass. 

His  arm  went  round  her  in  an  instant,  and  he  threw 
himself  backwards,  grasping  with  his  free  hand  for  one 
of  the  small  rough-hewn  granite  posts  that  mark  the 
edge  of  the  highway. 

"Get  a  firm  foothold,"  he  said.  "Stand  up  slowly. 
And,  for  God's  sake,  stand  fast." 

In  another  moment  they  were  side  by  side  on  the  level 
of  the  empty  road. 


220      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"If  you  once  get  slipping  on  that  grass,"  he  panted, 
— '"Well, — about  twenty  feet  below  us, — where  you  see 
the  bushes, — there's  a  drop  of  a  hundred  yards.  Men 
and  cattle  have  gone  over  here  in  the  dark  before  now. 
Just  look  at  those." 

He  pointed  to  five  or  six  little  boards,  set  up  on  sticks 
or  fastened  against  the  trees.  Most  of  them  bore  some 
sort  of  rough  painting:  sketches  of  cows,  of  men  in 
Tyrolese  hats,  of  goose-girls  and  shepherd-boys.  And 
underneath — sometimes  in  prose,  sometimes  in  halting 
rhyme — was  the  short  statement  that  the  Mayerhofer- 
Hans,  with  three  cows,  or  the  Oberbauer-Kathl,  on  her 
way  home  from  service  in  the  city,  had  missed  their  way 
here  and  had  fallen. — R.I.P. 

"Let  a  tear  for  my  fate  bedew  your  eye, 

And  say  one  'Our  Father'  and  three  'Hail  Marys'  for  me  as  you 
pass  by." 

"There  are  no  graves  that  bear  their  names  in  the 
Thiersee  churchyard,"  said  Edwards.  "They  are  sel- 
dom found.  When  they  are  it's  too  late  to  be  certain 
who  they  once  were." 

The  woman  at  his  side  covered  her  eyes  with  her  hands. 

"Death  is  so  cruel,"  she  said.     "I  fear  it  always." 

"But  no,"  he  answered.  And  something  emboldened 
him  to  take  her  hands  from  her  face.  For  a  moment 
he  held  them.  "Death  is  only  life  seen  from  another 
side — a  sort  of  Through-the-Looking-Glass.  My  people 
here," — he  pointed  down  into  the  valley, — "have  taught 
me  how  unimportant  death  is.  They  joke  about  it — 
not  lightly,  but  as  a  man  may  jest  with  some  great  prince 
whose  friendship  he  enjoys.  Look  at  that '  Martel, '  now, 
— that's  what  we  call  these  little  painted  boards  with 
their  strange  rhymes.  It's  probably  meant  as  a  joke. 
But  I  always  find  a  deeper,  a  refreshing  sense  in  the 
coarse  lines.  The  man  you  dislike  in  life  you  go  on 
disliking  in  death,  so  thin  is  the  partition  that  divides 
one  state  of  being  from  the  other." 

He  went  up  to  one  of  the  boards  that  bore  only  five 
lines  of  crabbbed,  painfully-printed  verse — 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      221 

"UNTER  DIESEM  STEINE 

MODERN  ME1NE  GEBEINE. 

ICH    WUENSCHT'    ES    WAEREN    FRANZ    RAMPOLD    DIE 

SEINE. 

DIEWEIL  ICH  DIESEN  SCHWEINEHUND 
WAHRHAFTIG  NIEMALS  LEIDEN  KUNDT." 

"I'm  not  much  at  translating,  but  it  might  be  done 
into  English  something  like  this — 

"  'HERE  UNDERNEATH  THESE  STONES 

LIE  MOULDERING  MY  BONES. 

I  WISH  THEY  WERE  THE  BONES  OF  EPHRAIM  JONES. 

FOR  JONES,  THAT  MOST  INFERNAL  SWINE, 

WAS  NEVER  ANY  FRIEND  OF  MINE.' " 

She  laughed:  the  shadow  that  had  seemed  to  oppress 
her  lifted,  and  she  disengaged  her  hands  quietly  from 
his. 

4 'Do  you  usually  make  love  to  all  women  at  such  a 
rapid  rate?"  she  asked. 

To  her  surprise  he  blushed  scarlet,  his  lips  quivered. 

"Did  I  make  love  to  you?"  he  stammered.  "It's  an 
odious  expression.  But  did  I?  I  didn't  mean  to. 
Really,  such  a  thing  never  entered  my  mind  for  a  mo- 
ment. You  see —  ' '  he  went  on,  loosening  his  collar  with 
one  finger,  "you  see,  I  don't  know  much  about — about 
women. ' ' 

She  drew  away  from  him.  If  this  were  acting,  it  was 
good  acting.  It  couldn't  be.  And  yet,  had  she  not  been 
told, — had  she  not  heard — — 

She  must  not  let  this  man  lead  her  about  blindfold. 

He  lead  her?  Why,  he  seemed  eager  to  be  led,  ex- 
actly like  a  child. 

"I've  said  something  idiotic,  I  suppose,"  he  burst 
out.  * '  And  I  did  so  want  to  ask  you  to  come  over  again 
soon.  It  would  mean  a  lot  to  me." 

"I'll  come,"  she  said. 

Whenever  he  looked  up  at  her  with  those  strange  gray 
eyes  of  his,  asking  for  help,  she  could  refuse  him  noth- 
ing. It  was  even  a  joy  to  give ;  a  torment  to  think  that 
anyone  might  do  the  giving  except  herself. 

They  walked  back  together  into  the  village.     Then 


222      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Edwards  mounted  her.  This  time  he  dared  to  help  her 
up,  although  she  scarcely  touched  his  knee  and  offered 
hand,  so  light  she  was. 

"You've  a  long  ride  before  you,"  he  said,  standing 
in  his  favorite  place  at  the  mare's  neck  and  looking  up 
at  her.  ' '  I  must  not  keep  you. ' ' 

And  then  he  talked  to  her  for  fifteen  minutes  with- 
out stopping  about  little  Helena. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

LONG  after  the  sound  of  her  horse's  hoofs  had  died 
away  in  the  distance,  Edwards  stood  at  the  gate  of  the 
churchyard  looking  at  the  mountains,  those  thin  out- 
lines of  white  against  the  blue  of  the  sky,  still  touched 
here  and  there  by  the  faint  red  rays  of  the  vanished 
sun.  He  watched  them  till  the  reddish  tinge  had  faded 
quite.  And  fat  little  Father  Mathias  watched  him  from 
the  door  of  the  "Widum." 

The  priest  had  given  Edwards  a  large  place  in  his 
kindly  heart;  more  often  than  Edwards  ever  suspected 
had  he  smoothed  his  way  among  the  people  of  Thiersee. 
And  of  late  he  had  followed  even  more  closely  the  xloings 
of  his  "Herr  Doktor,"  worrying  not  a  little  over  the 
nervous  symptoms  that  Edwards  had  taken  no  pains  to 
conceal.  For  he  knew  them  of  old  as  the  results  of  a 
more  or  less  lonely  life,  reacting  on  a  personality  not 
yet  at  unity  with  itself ;  and  he  longed  to  heal  the  cleft 
that  lie  suspected  in  his  friend's  inmost  soul,  so  that  he 
might  win  at  last  to  complete  manhood  and  to  peace. 

And  now,  just  when  he  had  seen  Edwards'  interest 
grow  and  bear  unexpected  fruit  in  his  rehearsals  of  the 
Passion-Play, — now  a  new  and,  as  he  believed,  a  dis- 
turbing element  had  appeared. 

The  affair  with  Nani  had  not  worried  him.  But  this 
woman  was  different.  In  her  he  intuitively  recognized 
a  messenger  who  came  to  Edwards  with  a  call  from  out 
of  his  past ;  from  out  of  the  old  home  life,  of  which  he 
never  spoke.  And  because  he  knew  that  this  home  life 
had  once  wounded  his  friend,  almost  to  the  death,  he 
feared  lest  this  new  intrusion  of  it  might  wound  him 
also.  Moreover,  he  knew  that  natures  like  Edwards' 
do  not  survive  a  second  wound. 

223 


224      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

The  worst  of  it  was,  that  he  held  in  his  hand  a  weapon 
that  could  easily  put  an  end  to  the  whole  thing. 

In  past  years,  once  every  summer,  the  good  priest  had 
been  invited  to  lunch  at  Liebenegg,  and  he  remembered 
Miss  Sparks  very  well.  A  quiet,  capable  little  woman, 
of  the  insignificant-looking  type  that  is  never  appre- 
ciated until  circumstances  remove  them,  and  their  friends 
are  astonished  to  find  how  large  a  gap  has  been  left 
by  their  going  in  the  creature-comforts  of  their  daily 
lives.  A  brave,  unattractive  fighter,  whom  one  might 
pass  a  hundred  times  on  the  street  and  never  notice. 
Nothing  like  this  other  rather  wonderful  person — she 
was  wonderful,  that  he  had  to  admit — who  came  riding 
out  from  among  the  trees,  clad  in  an  atmosphere  of 
perfection  and  of  reserved  power,  that  set  her  apart 
from  everyone  else.  One  felt, — she  is  perfect,  she  sits 
her  horse  with  marvelous  grace,  she  looks  strong,  beau- 
tiful, serene.  But  she  is  always  holding  somewhat  in 
reserve;  she  is  not  giving  all  she  has.  When  once  she 
does  so,  how  superlatively  beautiful,  serene,  and  grace- 
ful must  she  be. 

He  had  known  one  woman  something  like  her,  he,  little 
Father  Mathias.  Daughters  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples 
were  like  that  sometimes.  No  other  women — none. 

So  he  waited  at  the  open  door  of  his  house  until 
Edwards  turned  about  and  came  strolling  up  the  path, 
whistling  like  a  careless  boy.  But  the  priest  read  him 
well.  His  apparent  happiness  was  but  the  visible  re- 
action of  a  mind  that  has  suddenly  reached  temporary 
contentment  by  imposing  some  definite  agreement  upon 
its  own  opposing  forces. 

Joncke  was  at  the  schoolhouse ;  he  had  sent  word  that 
he  would  not  come  to  supper  this  Sunday,  as  he  must 
not  leave  Nani.  So  Edwards  and  the  priest  sat  alone 
in  the  big  untidy  room,  eating  their  scant  portions  of 
cold  meat  and  "filling  in  the  chinks"  with  bread  and 
cheese,  washed  down  with  tumblers  of  thin  red  wine. 
They  had  discussed  the  last  rehearsal  of  the  Play  in  all 
its  bearings,  and  Edwards  had  lighted  his  second  pipe, 
"When  the  priest,  taking  off  his  great  blue  goggles  as  if 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      225 

performing  some  weighty  ceremony,  leaned  back  in  his 
chair  and  interrupted  his  companion  with  an  impatient 
gesture  of  his  pudgy  white  hand. 

"You  didn't  come  into  my  house  this  evening  intend- 
ing merely  to  talk  about  the  Play.  Go  ahead.  What 
is  it?" 

Edwards,  who  had  been  in  a  communicative  mood, 
retreated  at  once  into  his  shell.  What  Father  Mathias 
had  said  was  true  enough.  Nevertheless,  he  was  not  go- 
ing to  have  his  confidence  forced.  So  he  cast  about 
rapidly  in  his  mind  for  something  with  which  to  stay 
the  other's  untimely  curiosity. 

' '  Oh,  it 's  nothing  much, ' '  he  said,  quite  conscious  that 
he  was  about  to  tell  a  lie,  and  not  particularly  comfort- 
able in  the  telling  of  it.  "I  only  wanted  to  confess 
that  I  have  surprised  the  secret  of  your  life." 

"What?"  stammered  Father  Mathias.  His  face 
flushed  a  deep  red,  and  he  bent  forward  in  sudden  anger. 
' '  You  wrote  to  England.  How  dared  you !  How  dared 
you!" 

"To  England!  What's  England  got  to  do  with  it? 
With  your  poetry,  I  mean?" 

"My  poetry?" 

"Why,  yes.  The  books  of  verse  you  publish  under 
the  name  of  Brother  Andreas.  It  seems  you  delight  to 
hide  your  good  deeds." 

Father  Mathias  dropped  back  again  into  his  easy- 
chair.  The  color  went  out  of  his  face,  and  he  slowly 
pushed  aside  the  masses  of  iron-gray  hair  from  his  damp 
forehead. 

"So  that's  what  you  meant  by  'the  secret  of  my 
life'?" 

Edwards  nodded.  The  priest  covered  his  eyes  with 
his  hand.  For  several  moments  no  one  spoke.  Then 
he  let  his  hand  fall  and  looked  smilingly  at  his  com- 
panion. 

"What  curious  machines  our  minds  are!"  he  said. 
"Do  you  know  what  has  just  happened?  I  had  an 
idea — quite  wrong,  it  seems — that  this  evening  you  were 
going  to  tell  me  something,  going  to  pull  down  part  of 


226      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

the  wall  that  still  separates  us,  and  let  me  look  in.  Not 
out  of  mere  desire  to  talk,  but  because  you  wanted  the 
advice  of  a  friend.  And  I — I  was  ready.  I  had  made 
up  my  mind  to  pull  down  my  wall.  Not  only  as  an  ex- 
change for  your  confidence,  but  as  the  best  sort  of  advice 
I  could  give  you.  Then  you  say  suddenly  that  you 
have  surprised  '  the  secret  of  my  life. '  And  I  am  angry, 
ashamed,  quite  beside  myself,  because  I  think  that  you 
have  discovered  the  very  thing  that  I  was  about  to  tell 
you  of  my  own  accord." 

"I  am  so  sorry."  Edwards  stretched  out  his  hand 
towards  Father  Mathias  across  the  table.  "But  your 
idea  was  absolutely  right.  I  did  come  intending  to — 
to  ask  advice.  And  then  I  lied,  because  I  felt  as  if — as 
if  you  were  trying  to  force  my  confidence." 

"That's  it,"  exclaimed  the  priest  excitedly.  "That's 
what  we  object  to,  what  makes  us  furious  and  ashamed. 
The  forced  confidence!  That's  what  makes  us  hot  all 
over,  when  someone  comes  and  says:  'Oh,  I've  found 
out  all  about  you.  You  might  as  well  own  up.'  It's 
like  a  spiritual  housebreaking.  And  you  resent  it  with 
every  fiber  of  your  manhood.  Resent  it  all  the  more 
if  there  was  anything  to  be  found  out.  And  what  can 
you  do?  Suppose  you  say  to  yourself:  'This  man 
knows;  but  half  of  what  he  thinks  he  knows  is  probably 
false.  In  self-defense  I  must  tell  him  the  truth  of  the 
matter.'  And  so,  with  tears  of  blood,  you  tell  him. 
Perhaps  he  believes  you.  Perhaps  he  doesn't.  That 
makes  no  difference.  You  will  hate  him ;  hate  him  your 
whole  life  long,  because  you  have  been  humbled  in  his 
eyes,  not  of  your  own  free-will,  but  because  he  forced 
you  to  humble  yourself  in  self-defense.  That's  why 
the  Catholic  Church  puts  her  priests  behind  solid  grat- 
ings in  the  confessional,  so  that  penitents  shan't  kill 
them  in  the  excess  of  their  hatred.  And  the  enforced 
humbling,  the  confession  even  of  the  most  harmless 
things  thus  wrung  from  you,  leaves  a  wound,  a  nasty 
wound;  you  can  never  think  of  it  without  its  aching. 
Not  the  matter  of  that  confession,  not  the  things  con- 
fessed, be  they  ever  so  evil,  have  any  power  to  hurt  you. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      227 

It's  being  compelled  to  acknowledge  them,  to  acknowl- 
edge these  dead  half-forgotten  things  as  part  of  your 
own  living,  sensitive  life.  That's  what  does  the  mischief. 
Believe  me." 

"But  if,"  Edwards  put  in,  surprised  at  the  clearness 
with  which  this  unlovely  little  man  had  laid  bare  the 
intricate  workings  of  a  tormented  soul,  "if  when  that 
same  spiritual  housebreaker  accuses  you,  you  answer 
nothing;  if  you  wrap  yourself  in  the  mantle,  not  of 
your  integrity,  but  of  your  pride,  and  deny  and  deny 
and  deny.  What  then  ? ' ' 

Father  Mathias  reached  across  the  table  to  his  book- 
shelf, drew  out  a  thin  paper-covered  pamphlet  and  tossed 
it  over  to  Edwards. 

"Do  you  know  the  work  of  Professor  Freud?  Heard 
about  it  of  course.  Anyway,  read  that  book  when  you 
get  a  chance.  All  that  interests  us  now  is  one  point  of 
his. — You  stick  a  needle  into  your  finger;  you  think 
you've  pulled  it  out,  but  the  point  has  broken  off,  and 
the  tiny  bit  of  steel  lies  in  your  flesh  unnoticed.  You 
forget  about  it.  Yet  the  point  is  there,  and  it  can  work 
its  way  up  your  arm  and  into  the  distant  parts  of  your 
body,  causing,  maybe,  disturbances  and  inflammations, 
while  the  fact  of  its  presence  has  escaped  you  all  these 
years. ' ' 

"Surgically,  that  isn't  true." 

"Never  mind.  It's  only  an  analogy. — Well,  a 
thought,  a  complex  compound  of  thoughts,  memories, 
and  the  feelings  that  they  evoke,  can  become  exactly  like 
that  broken  needle.  Something  has  happened  in  your 
life,  something  unpleasant.  You  're  ashamed  of  it,  which 
is  foolish ;  perhaps  afraid  of  it,  which  is  worse ;  afraid  of 
others  knowing  it,  which  is  the  worst  of  all.  So,  instead 
of  looking  the  thing  squarely  in  the  face  and  getting  rid 
of  it  at  once  and  forever,  you  shirk  it,  you  deny  it  to 
others  and  to  yourself, — you  push  it  aside  and  down  into 
your  subconsciousness.  Your  conscious  self  has  for- 
gotten it ;  but  it  is  there,  nevertheless,  below  the  thresh- 
old. And  it  acts  there  just  like  a  foreign  body;  makes 
all  sorts  of  nervous  mental  troubles, — doubts,  question- 


228      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

ings,  depression,  melancholia.  I  can't  go  into  all  that. 
But  in  your  supposed  case,  when  you,  as  you  say,  deny 
and  deny  and  deny,  you  force  the  thing  you  deny  down 
into  your  subliminal  consciousness:  and  there  it  sticks, 
doing  mischief.  You  can  never  become  self-sufficient, 
never  be  quite  a  man,  because  always  in  the  lower  levels 
of  your  mind  is  the  lurking  dread  that  someone  may 
come  along,  and,  by  a  word  of  accusation  or  calumny, 
stir  up  that  whole  buried  complex  and  bring  it  to  the 
surface.  And  a  thing  that  has  lain  for  years,  drowned 
and  rotting  on  the  slime  of  your  subconscious  self,  is  not 
nice  to  look  at." 

"But  what  ought  one  to  do?" 

"Do  what  the  police  do  when  they  find  that  something 
is  polluting  the  water  that  supplies  a  city — dredge  the 
bottom  of  the  pond.  Fish  up  what 's  lying  there.  Have 
a  good  look  at  it.  It  may  not  be  pleasant,  but  have  a 
good  long  look.  See  that  it's  a  dead,  shapeless  thing; 
that,  once  it's  out  of  your  water-supply,  it  can't  possibly 
do  you  any  harm.  And  then — then  take  it  away  and 
bury  it.  And — most  important  of  all — forget  where  its 
grave  is." 

"It  sounds  easy  enough." 

"  It 's  far  from  easy.  Some  people  can  do  the  dredging 
and  the  burying  for  themselves.  Most  of  us  can't, 
though.  That's  what  confession  means  psychologically. 
The  priest  is  trained  to  dredge  up  buried  things.  Most 
of  my  colleagues  are  splendid  sin-hunters.  Alas!  for 
that's  only  part,  the  least  difficult  part,  of  the  game. 
The  good  priest  has  got  to  make  his  penitent  see  that 
the  thing  is  dead,  that  it  can 't  hurt  him  any  more.  And 
most  doctors  can  do  that  better  than  the  general  run  o'f 
priests.  That's  why,  nowadays,  people  who  have  really 
hard  dredging  to  do,  go  to  the  consulting-room  rather 
than  to  the  confessional. — Do  you  know,  Edwards,  I've 
often  thought  that  if  the  dear  Lord  came  back  to  walk 
again  on  earth,  the  only  place  where  He'd  really  feel  at 
home  would  be  in  the  out-patient  department  of  some 
big  city  hospital." 

"Maybe.    We  doctors  stand  to-day  in  the  public  eye 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      229 

where  the  clergy  did  in  the  Middle  Ages.  I  only  hope 
we  shan  't  lose  the  world 's  confidence,  as  you  fellows  did, 
by  pretending  that  we  know  everything.  As  for  your 
Freudian  lecture,  it's  all  well  enough  theoretically. 
Only,  suppose  a  man  simply  can't  raise  the  dead  thing 
that's  poisoning  his  water.  He  has  piled  too  much  over 
it;  pushed  it  down  too  far." 

"Yes,  yes,  he  has  made  it  hard  for  himself.  But 
if  he  has  luck  he'll  find  himself  some  day  in  circum- 
stances that  will  help  him.  He'll  come  across  someone, 
a  physician  or  a  priest,  in  whose  presence  all  the  hin- 
drances he  has  set  of  his  own  free  will  are  suddenly 
dissolved.  Then,  simply,  easily,  the  work  is  done.  And 
he  looks  at  the  thing  he  has  hidden  away,  that  has 
terrorized  him  for  so  long;  and  he  asks  himself,  'Was 
I  ever  afraid  of  that?' ' 

"Might  not  the  'someone'  be  a  woman?" 

"We  do  not  empower  them  to  receive  confessions  in 
the  Catholic  Church.  And  wre  have  had  some  years'  ex- 
perience in  such  matters. Now  I  will  play  a  little. ' ' 

The  priest  fetched  his  'cello,  sat  down  in  a  dark  cor- 
ner of  the  room  and  began  to  improvise. 

After  a  few  moments  Edwards  interrupted  him. 

"I  know  what's  coming,"  he  said.  "Your  therapeu- 
tic methods  are  easy  enough  to  see  through.  But  it 's  no 
use.  If  you  try  to  play  'Jesus,  tender  Shepherd,'  I 
shall  take  my  hat  and  go." 

The  priest  answered  with  a  contented  little  laugh. 

"I  had  not  thought  of  that.  I  was  rather  busy  with 
my  own  dredging.  All  the  same,  I  believe  you've  given 
me  a  key  to  the  riddle.  When  the  day  comes  on  which 
you  can  hear  that  simple  old  hymn  played  through,  hear 
children's  voices  singing  it  and  sing  with  them  yourself, 
your  pond  will  be  dredged  out.  But  sit  down.  I've 
something  to  say. ' ' 

He  played  for  a  moment  without  speaking.  It  was 
some  sort  of  a  chant,  that  reminded  Edwards  of  the 
ancient  plain-song  of  the  mass. 

"Have  you  ever  been  to  a  service  at  St.  Paul's  in 
London?"  asked  Father  Mathias.  His  voice  was  low; 


230      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

he  kept  on  playing  while  he  spoke.  "No?  It's  worth 
hearing, — one  of  those  so-called  'High  Celebrations,' — 
from  the  musical,  aesthetic  point  of  view,  I  mean.  It 
makes  you  cry  and  feel  good  inside.  And  that's  all  the 
Anglican  asks  of  his  religion.  Perhaps  that 's  all  anyone 
asks, — only  some  of  us  seldom  get  it.  Well,  in  my  time, 
there  was  a  Minor  Canon  at  St.  Paul's  who  used  to  sing 
the  service,  the  way  you'd  expect  St.  Michael  the  Arch- 
angel to  sing.  Wonderful — especially  the  'Comfortable 
Words/  You  know  them, — but  of  course  you.  don't. 
Listen. ' ' 

He  played  a  few  simple  notes  on  his  'cello.  Then, 
to  the  throbbing  undertone  of  the  strings,  he  sang  in  his 
hushed  voice — 

HEAR     WHAT    -COMFORTABLE     WORDS     OUR     SAVIOUR 
CHRIST  SAITH  UNTO  ALL  WHO  TRULY  TURN  TO  HIM ; 

COME    UNTO    ME,  ALL    YE    THAT    TRAVAIL    AND    ARE 
HEAVY  LADEN,  AND  I  WILL  REFRESH  YOU. 

He  seemed  to  have  forgotten  Edwards'  presence. 

"Nothing  but  our  plain-chant,"  he  muttered: 
"adapted  from  the  mass;  stolen,  just  like  everything 
else  Anglican.  But  with  an  atmosphere  of  its  own, — 
an  atmosphere  of  its  own." 

He  sang  softly  on — > 

LIFT  UP  YOUR  HEARTS. 

"Dear  me,  dear  me,  how  often  the  tears  used  to  run 
down  my  nose  when  I  heard  that.  And  the  Preface 
goes  like  this" — 

EVERMORE  PRAISING  THEE  AND  SAYING 

His  voice  died  away.  Then,  after  a  moment's  silence, 
he  began  to  speak  again,  touching  a  string  now  and  then 
with  his  bow. 

"You  take  my  word  for  it,  young  man,  no  Catholic 
priest  ever  left  his  communion  because  of  any  doctrinal 
doubts  about  the  Supremacy  of  the  Pope  or  such  things 
as  that.  He  goes,  if  he  ever  goes  at  all, — for  a  woman. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      231 

And — and  when  the  woman  goes, — he  comes  back, — if 
he  can. 

"I  studied  my  theology  in  a  Jesuit  seminary.  They 
stopped  the  one  outlet  that  might  have  kept  me  straight, 
the  good  Jesuits  did.  They  discouraged  my  writing 
poetry.  They  are  not  very  clever.  I  often  wander  why 
Protestants  are  so  afraid  of  Jesuits,  anyway.  They're 
mostly  quite  harmless.  A  little  piety  and  a  little  world- 
liness,  and  a  little — oh,  such  a  very  little — dab  of  scholar- 
ship.— We  were  a  cosmopolitan  crowd,  we  theologians 
of  those  days — Croatians,  Germans,  Poles,  Americans, 
and  half  a  dozen  Ennglishmen.  One  of  these  last  was 
a  convert.  Not  a  very  firm  convert  either.  His  re- 
ligion was  all  dressing  up  in  old  brocade  copes,  and 
making  pleasant  smells.  But  we  roomed  together;  we 
were  ordained  together.  He  went  back  to  England.  I 
went  to  a  small  town  in  South  Tyrol,  where  I  had  no 
music,  no  friends,  nothing.  At  the  end  of  two  years  I 
fell  ill.  Nervous  breakdown,  the  doctors  said.  I  was 
ordered  to  take  two  months'  vacation,  and  I  thought  of 
my  old  friend  in  England.  We  had  always  kept  up  a 
desultory  correspondence.  So  I  wrote  him  that  I  was 
coming ;  and  before  he  could  answer,  I  came. 

"I  found  him  attached  to  a  tiny  mission  near  Lon- 
don, with  a  tin  church,  and  for  parishioners  the  serv- 
ants of  the  neighborhood  and  two  middle-class  trades- 
men. But  he  had  kept  in  with  his  former  Anglican 
friends.  He  came  of  good  people,  you  see.  And  I  don 't 
think  he  was  very  glad  to  have  me  with  him.  I  know 
now  that  he  was  on  the  verge  of  apostasy. 

"Perhaps  you  have  no  idea  of  what  the  Catholic 
Church  was  in  England  thirty  odd  years  ago.  There 
was  no  Westminster  Cathedral  then.  Nothing  impos- 
ing, except  the  Oratory ;  and  that  looked  new  and  unfin- 
ished. Remember,  I  had  spent  my  life  in  a  country  where 
the  Church  has  unbroken  claim  to  all  the  ancient  marks 
of  respect ;  to  all  that  we  are  accustomed  to  call  art  and 
culture.  And  in  England  I  found  a  struggling  little 
community,  composed,  well,  not  of  gentlefolk,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  old  families  from  among  the  nobility, 


232      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

of  which  one  heard  but  never  saw, — and  served  by  such 
a  strange  clergy.  French  priests,  flown  from  spoliation 
in  their  own  land,  a  dull,  dreary  lot  of  seminary-bred 
ecclesiastics,  and  a  small  company  of  very  courteous  and 
very  scholarly  gentlemen,  who  had  once  been  English  par- 
sons, and  who  spent  their  time  in  assuring  the  world  that 
'they  had  never  for  an  instant  regretted  the  hour  of 
their  conversion. '  Methought  they  did  protest  too  much. 

"I  was  an  impressionable  young  fellow.  And  my 
friend  took  me  with  him  into  the  warm,  delightful  at- 
mosphere of  English  rectories, — these  abodes  of  peace 
in  the  country,  with  their  wonderful  gardens.  He  took 
me  to  the  Abbey,  to  St.  Paul's,  to  the  choir  schools,  and 
— and  to  Oxford. 

"I  saw  Cardinal  Newman  once.  I  don't  believe  that 
he  ever  laid  the  ghosts  of  his  Oxford  days. 

"Well,  you  can  imagine — but  no,  you  can't. 

"The  Church  of  England  is  good  enough  to  recognize 
the  validity  of  our  Catholic  and  Roman  priesthood.  And 
in  those  days  there  were  plenty  of  devout  Anglicans  who 
believed  in  the  Apostolic  Succession,  yet  weren't  quite 
sure  that  they  had  it.  They  had  made  up  their  minds 
that  their  Church  must  have  priests  with  sacramental 
powers.  Only  the  kindly  old  parson,  with  gray  side- 
whiskers  and  a  dozen  children,  didn  't  fit  into  this  priestly 
ideal  somehow.  But  about  my  orders  there  could  be 
no  doubt.  A  tender  Anglican  conscience  that  came  to 
me  for  absolution,  or  heard  me  say  mass,  was  sure  of 
getting  what  it  sought — the  grace  of  Catholic  sacra- 
ments. 

' '  I  know  that  it  sounds  ridiculous  and  illogical  to  you. 
Why  didn't  such  people  become  Catholics,  you'll  ask, 
and  so  have  priests  of  whose  powers  they  were  always 
assured?  Well,  such  people  didn't.  And  they  don't. 
It's  English,  I  suppose,  to  think  one  thing  and  go  on 
doing  another. 

"But  that  will  explain  to  you  why  they  wanted  me 
so  badly, — me  and  my  English  friend. 

"Remember,  though,  what  I  said  at  first.  The  idea 
of  ministering  to  a  foreign  congregation  in  a  strange 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      233 

tongue,  of  ostracizing  myself,  of  bringing  down  on  my 
head  the  Greater  Excommunication  reserved  for  apos- 
tate priests — (and  I  believed  in  damnation  then), — all 
these  things  would  have  been  insuperable  difficulties. 
For  I  was  not,  like  my  friend,  born  and  bred  an 
Anglican.  He  was  only  'reverting  to  type.'  With  me 
it  was  different.  But  everything  seemed  easy,  because — 
because  of  her, 

"Don't  move.  There  is  the  tobacco  at  your  elbow. 
And  fill  your  glass.  I'm  almost  done. 

"This  is  the  first  evening  in  thirty  years  that  I've 
played  'The  Comfortable  Words'  through  without  a 
break.  And  I  must  have  a  look  at  all  my  ghosts — for 
the  last  time. 

"She  was  the  daughter  of  a  country  vicar.  I  can  shut 
my  eyes  and  see  the  garden  now,  with  its  long  nodding 
rows  of  hollyhocks. 

"You'll  have  a  hard  time  imagining  me — me — as  a 

lover.  But  in  those  days "  Tall,  I  never  was.  But 

I  had  some  sort  of  a  figure.  And,  besides,  I  was  'in- 
teresting': a  convert,  not  'to'  but  'from'  Rome.  And 
one  who  hadn't  sought  refuge  in  England  after  being 
kicked  out  for  some  scandal  at  home. 

' '  She  was  a  mite  of  a  girl,  with  great  masses  of  brown 
hair.  And  such  tiny  hands  and  feet.  But  such  a  big 
heart.  A  woman  without  fear.  I  think  the  onty  fault 
she  found  in  me  was  my  inability  to  stay  long  on  the 
back  of  a  jumping  horse.  She  was  beautiful  in  the  hunt- 
ing-field. I  have  been  reminded  of  her  lately. 

"The  rest  I  will  not  tell.  At  least,  not  more  than  I 
must. 

"I  kept  postponing  a  definite  break  with  my  old  faith. 
I  put  off  writing  the  Prince-Bishop  of  Brixen  that  I 
had  entered  the  'Anglo-Catholic  communion/  But  I 
officiated.  Yes,  I  said  'Dearly  beloved  brethren'  in  her 
father's  church.  I  had  had  an  interview  with  the 
Anglican  bishop;  he  had  been  most  considerate.  And 
she — she 

"I  wrote  many  verses  then.  Perhaps,  sometime,  I 
will  show  them  to  you. 


234      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"One  day, — it  was  a  Saturday, — they  brought  her 
home  dead.  , 

"A  fall  in  the  hunting-field.  Common  enough.  And 
she  knew  no  fear. 

"That  same  night  I  fled,  without  luggage,  without 
even  saying  good-by  to  my  kind  friends. 

"How  the  journey  passed  I  do  not  know.  But  I 
remember  I  thought  the  vengeance  of  God  was  on  my 
track,  and  I  prayed  that  the  train  might  not  be  wrecked 
till  I  had  reached  Brixen. 

"At  Brixen  I  went  straight  to  the  Prince-Bishop. 
The  one  who  died  a  year  ago.  He  was  a  good  man;  a 
wise  man  too. 

"  'Your  Grace,'  I  said,  'I  have  come  to  make  a  con- 
fession. ' 

"He  motioned  me  to  the  side  of  his  chair.  I  suppose 
I  must  have  looked  like  death. 

"  'Kneel  down  there,'  he  said,  'and  make  it  to  me.' 

' '  When  I  got  up  from  my  knees  he  showed  me  letters, 
clippings  from  English  newspapers,  sent  to  him  by  the 
Catholic  clergy,  denouncing  me  and  giving  the  circum- 
stances of  my  apostasy.  I  had  not  thought  the  news 
would  travel  so  fast.  But  they  have  good  eyes  the  Eng- 
lish Catholics.  They  see  a  long  way — into  other  people 's 
business. 

"  'And  now,  my  son,'  the  bishop  said,  'that  part  of 
your  life  is  dead.  These  letters  we  will  lay  here  in  my 
locked  desk.  The  rest  of  your  secret  shall  be  hidden  in 
my  heart.  It  is  for  you  to  show  us  whether  or  not  these 
papers  shall  be  burned  at  my  death,  and  die,  as  your 
secret  will  die,  with  me.' 

"Then  he  sent  me  to  Thiersee.  He  had  just  had  the 
news  of  poor  Holtzmann  's  death.  I  came  at  once.  And 
I  have  been  here  ever  since." 

Then,  after  a  long  pause,  Father  Mathias  added — 

"I  have  tried  all  these  years  to  lay  my  ghosts.  But 
it  is  only  to-night  that  I  have  ceased  to  fear  them.  And 
for  that,  my  friend,  I  have  you  to  thank.  You  alone." 

Edwards  stood  up  quietly. 

"Good  night,  Hochwiirden,"  he  said.     "I  think  I  un- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      235 

iderstand.  I  came  to  ask  counsel  of  you,  and  you  have 
given  me  of  your  very  best.  Let  us  hope  that  I  am 
man  enough  to  make  right  use  of  it. ' ' 

He  went  out  into  the  night,  leaving  Father  Mathias 
sitting  in  his  dark  corner,  thrumming  on  the  strings  of 
his  'cello. 


CHAPTER  XX 

LITTLE  HELENA  had  legs  like  the  scabbards  of  cavalry 
sabers,  and  a  tell-tale  soft  spot  at  the  back  of  her  head. 
As  for  the  latter,  Edwards  flattered  himself  that  it  had 
grown  harder  since  she  had  had  proper  food  and  air. 
But  his  dream  was  to  make  her  legs  straight  too,  by 
fracturing  them  and  setting  them  straight.  He  had 
seen  the  thing  done.  The  technique  was  simple.  Yet, 
until  now,  he  had  shrunk  from  it.  The  idea  of  breaking 
a  little  child's  legs  over  a  wedge  of  hard  wood  or  the 
edge  of  a  table  did  not  appeal  to  him  at  all. 

The  next  Sunday, — he  had  looked  forward  to  it  all 
the  week, — a  storm  made  it  impossible  for  him  and  his 
new  friend  to  lunch  in  the  open,  as  they  had  hoped  to 
do.  The  entire  day  was  disappointing.  During  the 
week  he  had  been  rehearsing  a  thousand  things  that  he 
wanted  to  say.  And  now  that  she  was  with  him  at  last 
he  could  not  say  them.  He  had  imagined  himself  sitting 
again  by  her  side  on  the  hill,  near  the  little  shrine,  in 
the  afternoon  sun.  Then  he  could  have  spoken,  he 
thought.  But  here,  in  his  own  tiny  bedroom,  with  the 
remains  of  the  lunch  that  she  herself  had  brought,  having 
driven  over  in  a  light  trap  with  a  groom  instead  of  rid- 
ing,— another  circumstance  that  had  quite  ruined  the 
picture  he  had  made  of  their  meeting, — here  speech  failed 
him  utterly. 

Nor  were  they  ever  alone.  If  it  were  not  Frau  Speck- 
bacher  asking  Edwards  something  about  Nani,  who  had 
been  moved  to  her  own  bed  downstairs,  it  was  Joncke 
with  annoying  questions  about  Toni  or  little  Helena, 
whose  voices  were  constantly  shrilling  out  from  the 
next  room.  The  bad  weather  had  made  both  children 
quarrelsome;  and  Joncke  did  not  seem  to  have  either 
the  will  or  the  power  to  keep  them  quiet. 

236 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      237 

The  precious  time  slipped  by;  yet  Edwards  sat  there 
hopelessly,  unable  to  redeem  the  passing  minutes,  aware 
that  his  guest  was  ever  on  the  point  of  departing,  and 
half-conscious  that  it  would  be  in  the  end  a  relief  to 
have  her  go. 

It  was  only  during  their  last  few  minutes  together, 
when  he  was  walking  her  down  the  hill  to  the  inn  where 
her  trap  stood  waiting,  that  he  felt  for  an  instant  the 
sense  of  freedom  which  had  formerly  so  fascinated  him 
in  her  presence.  And  it  was  her  own  directness  of 
speech  that  set  him  free. 

"We  haven't  hit  it  off  to-day,  exactly,  have  we?"  she 
said. 

He  was  holding  the  umbrella  over  her  head,  and  she 
took  his  arm  to  keep  herself  from  stumbling  on  the 
rough  washed-out  road. 

"But  you  mustn't  mind.  One  can't  always  count  on 
a  day  such  as  we  had  last  Sunday.  Or  on  chancing  to  be 
more  or  less  in  tune  exactly  at  the  right  moment — you 
and  I.  But  the  main  point  is  not  to  let  ourselves  be 
dominated  by  the  bad  days.  We  didn  't  make  them.  We 
mustn't  let  them  make  or  unmake  us." 

"Next  Sunday " 

"Next  Sunday  it  may  rain  too.  And  if  it  does,  I'm 
not  coming.  I  shan  't  come  until  I  can  ride. ' ' 

Edwards  was  suddenly  conscious  that  to  wait  two 
whole  weeks  without  seeing  her  again  was  out  of  the 
question.  He  cast  about  in  his  mind  for  some  excuse 
that  would  bring  her  to  him.  And  he  remembered  little 
Helena's  crooked  legs. 

"Couldn't  you  come  over  during  the  week?"  he  began, 
"I  do  so  want  to  get  little  Helena  straightened  out. 
And  I  can't  do  it  alone.  Ask  the  Frau  Professor  to 
give  you  a  holiday.  Do!  If  the  ride  back  is  too  long, 
you  might" — he  held  his  breath  with  delight  at  the 
thought — ' '  you  might  stay  overnight.  We  'd  fix  you  up 
a  bed  somewhere.  Or  you  could  sleep  at  the  inn." 

Then,  he  added  apologetically — 

"It's  a  lot  to  ask,  I  know.  But  during  your  hospital 
work  you  must  have  been  used  to  roughing  it." 


To  have  her  with  him  for  a  whole  unbroken  day !  To 
know  her  near  during  the  night !  His  eyes  danced  with 
excitement. 

"I  can't  promise,"  she  answered.  Because  in  her 
heart  she  fully  intended  to  come,  she  allowed  herself  the 
tormenting  joy  of  uncertainty.  "But  I'll  do  my  best. 
Let's  say  Thursday.  The  simplest  plan  would  be  for 
me  to  ride  over  in  the  afternoon  and  spend  the  night 
here.  Then  you  could  operate  early  next  morning.  And 
I  should  be  back  at  Liebenegg  for  tea  that  same  day. 
Only,  if  it  rains,  don't  count  on  me." 

He  did,  however,  count  on  her  very  much.  A  sense 
of  contentment  crept  over  him  as  he  tramped  by  her 
side  through  the  rain.  He  began  to  whistle  boyishly. 

He  felt  the  fingers  that  lay  lightly  on  his  arm  contract 
and  press  his  sleeve. 

"What's  that  you're  whistling?"  she  asked. 

He  thought  her  breathless  from  the  hurried  walk. 

"That?"  He  hesitated  for  a  moment.  "Let's  see. 
Oh,  that's  the  old  Latin  'Carmen'  we  used  to  sing  at 
my  school  on  big  occasions.  I  forget  where  we  stole  the 
melody  from.  Something  quite  well  known,  I  suppose. 
The  Latin  itself  is  more  than  a  trifle  weird.  A  sort  of 
paraphrase  of  some  psalm,  about  'Lifting  up  your  eyes 
to  the  hills.'  ' 

"I  know,"  she  answered. 

"OCCULOS  MEOS  LEVAVI 
AD  MONTES  AD  DOMINUM." 

"Yes,  that's  the  way  it  goes.     But  how  did  you ' 

"  I  must  have  heard  it  somewhere.  You  say  the 
melody  is  an  old  one.  No  doubt  the  words  are  old  too. ' ' 
Then  she  added,  in  a  lower  tone,  as  if  uncertain  of  her- 
self, "You  must  tell  me  about  your  old  school  some  day. 
Will  you?" 

His  whistling  died  away.  His  voice  was  cold,  even, 
polite. 

"If  it  interests  you,  certainly." 
Conscious  of  a  misstep,  she  interposed — 
' '  You  must  not  think  me  inquisitive. ' ' 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      239 

He  did  not  answer.  The  Walls  of  Silence  that  he  had 
built  up  around  his  life  had  loomed  suddenly  through 
the  mist  of  his  happiness.  He  had  forgotten  them;  but 
there  they  were  still,  massive,  forbidding,  the  work  of 
long  arduous  years. 

And  he  had  been  dreaming  of  pulling  them  down — in 
an  hour.  It  was  impossible. 

Yet,  when  the  next  day  dawned  clear,  with  the  sun 
pouring  over  everything,  cleaning  up  the  outlines  of  the 
mountains,  and  even  of  their  reflections  in  the  little  lake, 
his  desire  to  be  with  her  again,  to  feel  once  more  that 
unusual  sense  of  freedom,  returned  with  increased  force. 
He  threw  his  thoughts  forward  to  Thursday,  and  spent 
the  intervening  days  in  ceaseless  preparation. 

Joncke  annoyed  him  not  a  little.  Evidently  the 
schoolmaster  did  not  relish  the  idea  of  ceding  to  another, 
even  for  a  day,  his  duties  as  factotum  in  the  little 
"clinic."  He  found  objections  to  everything.  Frau 
Speckbacher  too  was  in  a  bad  temper.  Why  should  the 
Herr  Doktor  give  up  his  bed  ?  Why  could  not  the  Frau- 
lein  sleep  at  the  inn? 

Finally,  Edwards  lost  patience,  and  made  the  neces- 
sary changes  with  his  own  hands.  Joncke  sulked.  And 
Frau  Speckbacher,  failing  to  get  much  sympathy  out  of 
the  schoolmaster,  took  it  out  of  the  convalescent  Nani. 

''It's  all  thy  fault — thine  and  thy  fine  Franzl's,"  she 
scolded.  "Hadst  thou  had  a  little  sense,  this  need  not 
have  happened.  He  would  have  been  content  here,  the 
Herr  Doktor.  Now,  this — this  'English'  will  take  him 
away.  That  kind  have  no  consideration  for  others. 
They  will  have  marriage  or  nothing.  And  he  will  pay 
the  price.  I  know  men.  Then  he  will  leave  us;  and  I 
shall  lose  this  place,  and  have  to  go  back  into  service  at 
Kuf stein — me  with  my  poor  feet ! ' ' 

To  Edwards  she  dared  say  but  little  directly.  Her 
whole  manner,  however,  of  serving  him,  the  delicate 
reminders  with  which  she  surrounded  him,  a  cup  of  cold 
coffee,  an  overdone  egg,  an  undusted  shelf — all  these 
and  a  thousand  other  things  were  warnings  of  her  dis- 
approval, until  Edwards  himself  began  to  harbor  a  se- 


240      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

cret  conviction  that  he  was  really  somehow  acting  like 
a  brute. 

But  if  Frau  Speckbacher  made  him  feel  like  a  selfish 
criminal,  Joncke  infuriated  him  to  the  verge  of  frenzy. 
For  Joncke  said  nothing;  but  what  he  looked  would 
have  filled  volumes.  Edwards  had  made  the  mistake  of 
setting  him  to  read  up  the  whole  subject  of  "Tuber- 
culosis" in  his  little  medical  library;  and  now  he  could 
not  sit  down  for  an  instant  at  his  desk  without  finding 
some  book  carefully  opened  at  a  marked  passage.  Pas- 
sages all  of  the  same  tenor:  warnings  by  ultra-conserva- 
tive authorities  against  operative  attempts  on  rachitic 
children;  explanations  of  the  similarity,  if  not  the 
identity,  of  scrofula  and  tuberculosis;  long  descriptions 
of  the  dangers  that  might  result  from  breaking  and  re- 
setting a  bone  once  diseased,  and  in  which  the  pathologi- 
cal process  had  not  reached  absolute  cure,  and  so  start- 
ing up  again  in  the  whole  body,  by  way  of  the  circula- 
tion, fresh  reactions  in  other  organs,  that  might  end  in 
a  galloping  consumption. 

Edwards  knew  all  this  well  enough.  But  he  did  not 
care  to  be  reminded  of  it.  There  were  moments  in  which 
he  told  himself  that  it  would  be  safer  if  he  waited  a 
year  before  touching  little  Helena's  cavalry-saber  legs. 

But — but — then  she  would  not  come;  or  she  would 
come  only  to  have  a  look  round  and  be  off  again.  He 
could  not  hope  to  keep  her,  to  hold  her  for  the  night. 

At  any  rate,  he  had  made  his  decision  about  the  op- 
eration, and  he  was  going  to  stick  to  it.  Joncke  and 
Frau  Speckbacher  only  succeeded  in  making  him  exces- 
sively ill-tempered  and  uneasy. 

Thursday  came  at  last.  When  he  woke  he  lay  for  a 
while  with  his  eyes  tight  shut,  not  daring  to  open  them 
lest  he  should  find  it  raining.  He  remembered  so  many 
similar  days  in  his  boyhood,  when  he  was  staining  his 
fingers  and  ruining  his  clothes  with  amateur  photog- 
raphy, and  when  a  cloudy  sky  on  Saturday,  his  one 
free  morning  in  the  week,  was  a  catastrophe  beyond 
words. 

At  last  he  unclosed  his  eyes.     Dazzled,  he  shut  them 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      241 

again.  It  was  a  glorious  day.  As  he  used  to  do  when 
a  boy,  he  leaped  out  of  bed  with  a  delighted  whoop,  and 
nodded  joyously  to  the  sun. 

She  would  come.    Nothing  else  mattered. 

Before  dinner  he  stole  out  into  the  fields  and  gath- 
ered an  armful  of  wild-flowers.  He  wanted  to  put  them 
in  his  room  that  had  been  got  ready  for  her.  But  when 
he  appeared  with  them  in  the  kitchen  and  demanded 
some  sort  of  a  vase  to  arrange  them  in,  Frau  Speck- 
bacher  let  the  saucer  of  his  favorite  coffee-cup  fall  on 
the  hearth,  where  it  smashed  with  an  echo  of  her  un- 
spoken reproof.  So  he  had  to  arrange  the  flowers  him- 
self in  two  cracked  milk  pitchers.  Still  feeling  rather 
ashamed  and  ill  at  ease,  he  tried  to  propitiate  Frau 
Speckbacher  by  laying  a  handful  of  the  daisies  he  had 
gathered  on  Nani  's  bed  as  he  went  out  of  the  room. 

The  moment  the  door  closed  behind  him,  Frau  Speck- 
bacher came  to  Nani's  bedside,  and  pointed  at  the  flow- 
ers with  a  reproachful  bread-knife. 

"And  to  think,"  she  said — "Ach,  to  think  that  thou 
mightst  have  had  them  all." 

By  three  o'clock  Edwards  began  to  grow  uneasy,  and 
wandered  about  like  a  lost  soul.  He  had  wiped  little 
Helena's  nose  and  brushed  Toni's  hair.  There  seemed 
nothing  really  left  to  do.  So  he  went  and  looked  at  him- 
self in  the  mirror. 

And  what  he  saw  did  not  please  him  at  all. 

Then  his  clothes  began  to  fly.  The  ancient  bowler 
hat,  with  its  inked  brim,  he  chucked  to  the  top  of  his 
clothes-press.  Off  came  the  frock-coat,  white-seamed, 
spotted,  full  of  creases.  Away  with  the  whole  lot,  he 
thought.  But  what  I'll  put  on  in  their  stead  I  don't 
know. 

At  the  bottom  of  his  trunk  he  found  the  ancient  pair 
of  riding-breeches  and  the  cracked  leather  leggings  that 
he  had  worn  when  he  walked  into  Thiersee  so  many 
months  ago.  A  fresh  soft  shirt  with  an  open  collar. 
No,  he  would  not  wear  a  cravat ;  he  had  not  a  single  de- 
cent one  anyway.  And  then,  before  slipping  into  an 
old  blue-serge  jacket,  he  sharpened  his  razor  and  shaved 


242      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

off  his  heavy  mustache.  He  told  himself  that  he  might 
as  well  do  it  now.  As  Pontius  Pilate  he  would  have 
to  lose  it  in  any  case.  Then,  whistling,  he  set  the  room 
to  rights  and  walked  out  into  the  hall.  But  as  Joncke 
was  downstairs  in  the  schoolroom,  he  thought  he  would 
look  in  on  his  two  little  patients  for  a  moment,  and  bid 
them  be  good  until  he  returned — with  her. 

He  hurried  into  the  "clinic,"  and  bent  over  little 
Helena's  bed. 

She  looked  at  him,  gave  a  shrill  scream  of  fright, 
turned  away  and  buried  her  face  in  the  pillow.  And 
Toni,  wakened  from  a  nap,  set  up  a  shout  for  help  that 
rang  through  the  house,  and  brought  Joncke  and  Frau 
Speckbacher  hot-foot  from  the  floor  below. 

They  found  little  Helena  almost  in  convulsions,  strug- 
gling in  the  arms  of  a  man  whom  she  did  not  recognize ; 
while  Toni,  ashamed  now  of  his  own  sudden  fright,  was 
pushing  himself  between  Edwards  and  the  terrified  child. 

* '  I  '11  get  her  quiet,  Herr  Doktor.  She  don 't  know  you 
without  your  mustache.  You  oughtn't  to  have  done  it 
so  quick." 

Joncke  gave  one  look  round  the  room  and  went  back 
to  his  pupils.  But  Frau  Speckbacher,  her  hands  on  her 
hips,  stood  in  the  doorway  gazing  at  Edwards.  Some- 
thing in  her,  the  Eternal  Feminine  that  answers  auto- 
matically to  the  sight  of  unbroken  manhood,  made  her 
stern  lips  relax.  Her  anger  and  disapproval  of  the  last 
few  days  were  suddenly  gone. 

"What  a  handsome  lad!"  she  murmured.  "Why, 
what  a  handsome  lad ! ' ' 

Edwards,  however,  felt  like  a  fool.  It  hurt  him  that 
little  Helena  should  shrink  away  from  the  arms  that 
had  so  often  held  her;  and,  leaving  her  in  Toni's  care, 
he  pushed  past  Frau  Speckbacher  and  strode  out  of  the 
room.  Frau  Speckbacher  hurried  to  the  window  and 
watched  him  go  swinging  up  the  road.  Then  she  sighed, 
and  went  slowly  back  to  her  work. 

But  Edwards'  happy  poise  of  mind  was  gone.  He 
felt  as  if  he  were  masquerading,  or  like  a  very  diffident 
young  man  in  a  new  spring  suit  who  imagines  that  every 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      243 

eye  is  upon  him.  To  avoid  meeting  anyone,  he  cut 
across  the  fields  and  walked  up  the  steep  Mil-road,  down 
which  he  knew  that  she  must  come. 

He  glanced  at  his  watch.  She  ought  to  have  been 
here  by  now,  he  thought.  Then  he  sat  down  on  a  stone 
and  waited. 

Fifteen  minutes. — Half  an  hour. — Three-quarters. 

The  sun  had  begun  to  dip  down  behind  the  hills.  The 
minutes  crawled  on,  intolerably  slow. 

An  hour. 

His  ears  were  so  weary  with  listening  for  the  sound 
of  horses'  hoofs  that  he  welcomed  it  as  a  relief  when, 
at  first,  from  the  distance,  he  caught  the  faint  rhythmi- 
cal notes  of  the  cow-bells.  The  cattle  were  coming  home. 

He  must  not  let  the  girls  and  boys,  who  drove  them 
in,  see  him  sitting  there.  And  in  these  strange  clothes. 

How  ridiculous  he  had  been, — dressing  up  like  this! 
Making  such  a  fuss ! — And  she  not  coming. 

No  doubt  she  had  forgotten  all  about  it,  or  had  not 
thought  her  promise  worth  the  keeping. 

She  was  not  coming  after  all. 

He  hurried  home  across  the  fields  and  so  reached  the 
schoolhouse  from  the  back.  The  window  of  Frau  Speck- 
bacher's  room  on  the  ground  floor  was  open.  How  they 
would  all  laugh  at  him  when  he  returned  alone. 

And  little  Helena !  At  any  rate,  he  would  not  operate 
now.  That  would  be  safest.  He  had  been  mad  to  think 
of  it.  At  least  some  good  should  come  of  his  disap- 
pointment. 

He  bent  down,  so  as  to  pass  unnoticed,  below  the  level 
of  Frau  Speckbacher's  window. 

Just  then  he  heard  the  good  Frau  say — 

"The  gracious  lady  is  quite  right.  But  the  gracious 
lady  must  take  my  bed.  I  will  sleep  on  the  sofa. ' ' 

And  a  voice  answered  her,  a  voice  that  sent  the  blood 
rushing  to  his  face. 

"Did  you  think  I'd  let  him  give  up  his  bed?  After 
a  long  day's  work!  And  you  say  he  has  shaved  off  his 
mustache.  I'll  pretend  not  to  notice  it." 

He  heard  Frau  Speckbacher  laugh. 


244      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"The  gracious  lady  will  have  hard  work  to  pretend. 
He  looks  ten  years  younger.  A  fine  handsome  lad, 
gracious  one." 

Edwards  went  up  to  the  open  window  and  looked  in. 

"Hallo! "he  said. 

"Hallo  yourself. — Seen  all  your  patients?" 

"Patients? — No. — I  went  out  to  meet  you,  and  sat  for 
an  hour  cursing  by  the  roadside. ' ' 

' '  I  came  round  by  the  lake  to  get  a  sight  of  the  moun- 
tains. What  a  shame ! — But  it  will  be  all  right  now." 

"Yes;  it's  all  right  now." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

SHE  seemed  to  have  brought  contentment  with  her.  Not 
only  had  she,  in  a  few  moments,  made  friends  with  Frau 
Speckbacher  and  Nani ;  not  only  set  little  Helena  gurg- 
ling with  delight  over  a  furry  toy-bear,  and  Toni's  eyes 
aglow  with  a  new  book;  she  had  even  charmed  a  smile 
to  Joncke's  loose  expressionless  lips,  a  little  color  into 
his  white  face. 

As  for  Edwards,  the  sudden  reaction  from  disap- 
pointment to  fruition,  from  the  emptiness  of  not  having 
her  to  the  fullness  of  her  presence,  carried  him  off  his 
feet.  He  talked  too  much  and  too  loudly.  He  was 
aware  of  it,  and  he  did  not  care.  He  behaved  like  a 
boy  just  home  from  school.  He  knew  that  it  must  look 
undignified,  but  he  did  not  care.  He  hunted  out  the 
half-bottle  of  Kummel  that  Professor  Schroeder  had 
sent  with  his  gift  of  drugs;  they  drank  it  with  their 
coffee.  Frau  Speekbacher  actually  made  fresh  coffee. 
He  took  three  glasses  of  Kummel.  One  would  have 
been  enough;  but  he  did  not  care. 

Then,  as  suddenly  as  it  had  come,  this  exuberance  of 
good  spirits  fell  from  him.  But  the  quiet  contentment 
remained. 

After  their  supper,  when  Frau  Speckbacher  ancj 
Joncke  had  disappeared,  and  Edwards  was  sitting  alone 
with  her  in  the  moonlight,  near  his  open  window,  he 
said  abruptly — 

"It's  got  to  come  sometime.  It  may  as  well  be  now. 
You  asked  me  once  to  tell  you  about  my  old  school.  But 
there  are  so  many  other  things  to  tell  before  I  get  back 
as  far  as  that,  that  I'll  have  to  begin  soon  or  not  at 
all." 

"Wait  a  moment,"  she  interposed.  "If  it's  going  to 
hurt  you, — don't." 

245 


246      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"It  won't  hurt  me.  But  it  may  make  me  feel 
ashamed. ' ' 

"Ashamed!"  Her  voice  rang  out  like  a  challenge. 
"You, — ashamed! — Have  you  got  no  farther  than  that? 
— But,  I'm  listening." 

She  settled  herself  quietly  in  her  chair,  holding  her 
body  so  still  that  no  sound  from  her  reached  him,  yet 
gathering  up  all  the  forces  of  her  inner  life  and  sending 
them  out  towards  him,  in  her  intense  desire  to  melt  with 
her  affection  the  seven  seals  of  his  soul,  so  that  at  last 
the  book  might  lie  open  before  her.  She  had  hoped  for 
this  hour,  had  planned  for  it.  Now  it  was  come,  and 
she  must  not  be  found  wanting. 

As  Edwards'  voice  from  the  shadows  beside  her  spoke, 
— speech  growing  easier  and  easier  for  him  with  every 
moment, — she  caught  herself  wondering,  "Is  this  all? 
Is  he  not  keeping  something  back?  Something  that  he 
still  fears  to  tell?" 

For  she  heard  of  no  deeds  surpassingly  evil,  no  wick- 
edness of  pride  or  lust  or  cruelty.  It  was  only  the 
story  of  a  man  who  had  come  late  into  his  manhood,  and 
who  had  been  caught  and  bruised  in  the  wheels  of  cir- 
cumstance without  ever  winning  to  a  man's  clear  vision 
of  the  supreme  value  of  his  own  personality  and  its 
dignity;  who  still,  like  a  boy,  had  the  immature  feeling 
that  these  wheels,  that  had  bruised,  both  hated  and  de- 
spised him. 

He  told  her,  groping  slowly  back  from  the  immediate 
present  into  the  past,  of  his  bondage  to  petty  acts,  here 
in  this  very  room;  of  how  he  had  felt  forced  to  take 
these  steps  seven  times,  to  lay  these  things  in  exactly 
that  position;  and  of  how  this  servitude  had  only 
dropped  from  him  during  the  last  few  weeks. 

' '  The  remembrance  of  it  shames  me, ' '  he  said. 

Next,  he  told  her  of  his  years  in  Europe ;  of  a  winter, 
— his  voice  shook  when  he  spoke  of  those  days, — a  win- 
ter spent  in  Vienna,  alone,  because  he  had  lost  all  touch 
with  the  world  of  his  friends.  And  then  of  the  hap- 
penings that  had  preceded  his  coming  abroad. 

He  had  the  gift  of  concise  statement ;  he  did  not  spare 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      247 

himself  or  her.  And  yet  once  more  she  found  herself 
asking,  "Is  this  all?  Is  he  not  keeping  something 
back?" 

At  last  he  stopped. 

' '  It  shames  me  so  to  put  it  into  words, ' '  he  whispered. 
"It  shames  me  so!" 

And  again,  as  before,  she  turned  upon  him,  her  clear 
voice  challenging  and  defiant. 

' '  Shame ! ' '  she  said.  ' '  You, — a  physician,  who  knows 
the  hidden  workings  of  soul  and  body, — and  you  talk 
of  shame!  How  can  there  be  place  in  your  thoughts 
for  such  a  thing? — What  have  you  told  me,  my  friend, 
when  all's  said?  That  you  have  suffered  under  a  cer- 
tain illness  of  the  mind.  Your  petty  bondage,  as  you 
call  it,  to  those  fixed  ideas  was  an  illness,  something  out- 
side of  you,  something  beyond  your  power  to  help.  And 
you  let  the  thought  of  it  trouble  you, — shame  you! 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  shame  for  a  clear-thinking  man 
or  woman.  It  springs,  I  suppose,  from  the  conviction 
that  certain  actions  are  sinful;  actions  which  religion 
or  ethics  have  for  centuries  forbidden  us  to  do,  and 
which,  in  spite  of  the  prohibition,  we  men  and  women 
have  always  done.  And  because  we  do  them,  and  yet 
believe  that  we  ought  not,  therefore  we  hide  them. 
Then,  when  they  are  by  chance  discovered,  we  feel — 
ashamed.  I  can  understand  regret:  sorrow  that  some 
things  must  have  been,  that  others  could  not  be.  But 
shame, — no. '  * 

"Yes,  perhaps,"  he  assented  eagerly,  as  a  man  grop- 
ing in  darkness  towards  a  single  gleam  of  light.  "But 
how  about  those  other  things  that  I've  just  told  you? 
Those — other — other  worse " 

"Well,  and  what  were  they?  You  drank  too  much 
of  a  chemical  compound  that  is  poisonous  to  the  nervous 
system  when  taken  in  such  large  quantities.  Like  all 
poisons,  it  creates  in  the  body  a  new  set  of  conditions. 
Haven't  I  worked  in  the  alcoholic  wards?  Habitual 
drinkers — men  who  drink  hard — don't  fill  themselves  up, 
as  so  many  people  think,  because  of  a  desire  to  enjoy 
an  increased  sense  of  happiness.  They  do  it  because, 


248      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

without  it,  they  are  utterly  wretched:  so  sick,  in  so 
much  greater  pain  from  their  poisoned  nerves  than  many 
a  patient  after  a  severe  surgical  operation,  that  they 
must  drink  in  order  to  do  their  daily  work  and  earn 
their  daily  bread.  They  drink  to  keep  well  enough  to 
work,  and  the  alcohol  makes  them  unfit  to  work  without 
drinking.  A  vicious  circle.  And  once  you  get  inside 
it  you're  a  sick  man,  a  poisoned  man.  Where  is  there 
any  room  for  shame? 

"I  often  admire  the  people  in  this  country.  Here  it 
is  nothing  disgraceful  to  be  drunk.  I  have  seen  a  son, 
a  university  student,  come  in  to  dinner  with  his  family 
and  have  to  be  helped  to  bed.  His  mother  did  not  weep 
tears  of  shame  into  her  soup.  She  was  merely  a  little 
distressed  because  her  son  had  shown  that  he  was  not  yet 
become  a  man,  in  that  he  had  not  known  when  to  stop. 
And  his  father  made  fun  of  him  because  he  could  not 

carry  his  liquor  like  a  gentleman.  But  in  America 

in  England 

"Why,  once  when  I  was  a  girl  my  brother  came  home 
— well,  drunk.  He  was  only  a  boy.  Not  yet  twenty. 
His  college  had  won  a  football  game  or  something,  and 
the  enthusiasm  of  victory  had  carried  him  off  his  feet. 
My  mother  sent  me  out  of  the  room.  But  I  listened  at 
the  door,  and  heard  my  father's  cutting  angry  tones  as 
he  talked  to  Fred.  And  next  day  and  for  weeks  after- 
wards,— oh,  I  shall  never  forget  the  look  of  intense  shame 
in  that  poor  boy's  eyes  as  he  crept  about  the  house. 
My  father  and  mother  had  blocked  his  attainment  of 
his  manhood  by  ten  years.  Yes,  blocked  it  forever.  Be- 
cause father  made  him  promise  that  he  would  not  drink 
a  drop  during  the  whole  of  his  next  two  years  at  the 
University.  Of  course  he  did  not  keep  his  word.  How 
could  he?  And  that  made  him  sly  and  a  liar.  Gave 
him  something  that  he  had  always  to  conceal.  Made  him 
ashamed, — ashamed  all  his  life,  until  they  found  him 
dying  of  pneumonia  under  a  false  name  in  some  low 
house  in  Boston, — ashamed  on  his  deathbed." 

Edwards'  hand  went  out  in  the  darkness.    She  felt 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      249 

his  movement  rather  than  saw  it,  and  her  cool  firm  grasp 
met  his. 

"But  that  wasn't  the  worst,  you  know,"  he  whispered. 
"The  drinking  I  mean.  That  woman — — " 

"You're  a  proud  man,"  came  the  answer,  as  he  bent 
forward  to  catch  every  word.  "And  here  I  think  it 
must  be  your  pride  that  all  these  years  has  added  fuel 
to  the  fire  of  your  shame.  The  thing  you  miscall  love — 
let 's  give  it  its  real  name,  physical  attraction — is  an  ap- 
petite like  any  other. ' ' 

"Oh,  it's  more  than  that,"  interposed  Edwards.  His 
grasp  on  her  hand  tightened.  "What  do  you  know  of 
it?  Have  you  ever  waked  at  night  in  bed,  and,  half 
asleep  still,  stretched  your  hand  to  find  and  meet  the 
hand  that  has  lain  in  yours  for  so  long  as  you  fell  asleep 
night  after  night, — stretched  out  to  grasp  it  and  found 
— nothing?  Have  you  ever  sat  up  there  alone  in  the 
darkness  and  called  and  called  and  called  with  every 
power  of  your  soul  to  someone  who  had  gone  forever? 
Someone  who  had  filled  your  life  to  the  brim  with  her 
presence,  and  had  departed  like  a  thief  in  the  night, 
leaving  only  emptiness  and  pain  behind.  How  should 
you  know  ? ' ' 

"How  should  I  know?  Dear  Lord,  how  should  I 
not?" 

The  words  fell  from  her  lips  almost  inaudibly.  Her 
fingers  relaxed  in  Edwards'  grasp  as  if  about  to  be 
withdrawn. 

Fearing  lest  he  had  hurt  her,  he  said — 

' '  I  have  wounded  you.  Forgive  me.  But  even  if  you 
have  some  faint  idea  of  all  I  mean,  how  can  you  know 
what  it  is  to  call,  as  I  called,  night  after  night,  for  some- 
one who  had  betrayed  my  love  and  abused  my  devotion, 
who  had  trampled  all  the  best  that  was  in  me  in  the 
mire,  who  had  gone  because  I  had  no  more  to  give.  And 
yet  for  whom  my  whole  being  cried  out  in  such  intol- 
erable longing  that  I  would  have  taken  her — oh,  how 
gladly, — taken  her  back  to  let  her  abuse  and  betray  and 
trample  on  my  heart  again." 


250      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

He  let  her  hand  fall  and  covered  his  eyes.  Even  there 
in  the  dim  moonlight  he  felt  as  if  he  might  surprise 
on  her  face  some  passing  look  of  condemnation.  Then, 
as  from  a  distance,  he  heard  her  voice,  calm,  decisive, 
healing. 

"But  all  that  proves  my  point.  This  thing  that  tor- 
mented you,  this  losing  of  yourself  in  the  personality  of 
another,  this  heightening  of  your  sense  of  happiness  in 
the  exclusive  presence  of  one  woman,  this  narrowing 
down  of  all  your  mental  contentment  and  physical  de- 
light to  one  point  of  contact  with  the  body  of  one  single 
person,  all  this — I  don't  put  it  succinctly  I  know, — all 
this  is  a  sort  of  disease,  a  sort  of  infection,  a  poison  if 
you  care  to  call  it  so.  Just  like  alcohol,  or  opium  or 
nicotine.  Your  relations  to  this — this  woman  were  such 
that,  to  use  an  old  phrase,  you  simply  could  not  live 
without  her.  That  is,  in  order  to  be  able  to  do  your 
work  in  the  world  of  men,  you  had  to  have  her  near 
you.  Without  her  you  were  useless, — you  were  ill.  Just 
as  the  user  of  opium  is  ill,  intensely  ill,  until  he  is  pulled 
up  to  a  normal  sense  of  health  by  his  daily  dose. 

"Have  you  never  thought  out  the  parallels  between 
infectious  disease  and  the  condition  of  mind  that  you 
men  miscall  love  ?  I  don 't  mean  affection ;  the  one  thing 
that  makes  life  worth  living,  and  that  may  include  pas- 
sion or  may  not.  The  affection  of  mother  for  son,  of 
father  for  daughter,  of  friend  for  friend;  of  man  for 
woman,  too.  That  is  something  quite  different.  But 
what  you've  described,  this  domination  of  your  life  by  a 
single  external  influence,  an  influence  that,  on  your  own 
confession,  could  not  tend  to  build  up  your  life  but  to 
break  it  down — this,  I  say,  was  a  thing  beyond  the  power 
of  your  will  to  control.  So  long  as  you  were  under  its 
tyranny  you  were  a  sick  man,  or,  let  us  say,  not  your 
normal  self.  And  who  can  blame  a  man  for  what  he 
does  in  moments  of  delirium?  In  those  days  you  were 
not  free.  No  man,  of  his  own  free  will,  intentionally 
throws  away  a  career  that  he  has  spent  years  in  making. 
Yet  that  is  what  you  say  you  did.  You  never  willed 
to  shame  your  father  or  break  your  mother's  heart,  any 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      251 

more  than  a  wife  in  her  delirium,  wills  to  torment  those 
she  loves  when  she  shrieks  in  terror  at  the  mere  sight  of 
husband  and  children. 

' '  You  were  not  free.  I  say  it  again.  Not  free.  And 
therefore  you  may  regret,  as  a  man  may  regret  an  ill- 
ness that  made  him  unable  for  a  time  to  do  his  work  in 
the  world.  But  you  have  no  cause  for  shame. ' ' 

"And  yet  the  shame  is  there.  It  takes  me  by  the 
throat.  It  is  a  real  thing." 

"Ah?  my  friend,"  she  answered,  ''that  is  only  your 
wounded  pride."  Then  into  her  voice  there  crept  a 
passing  tone  of  antagonism  that  he  did  not  understand. 
"But  will  you  not  show  me  the  real  depth  of  the  wound, 
whatever  it  be  that  caused  it?  Tell  me  of  the — of  the 
woman  herself.  Men  are  not  usually  reticent  about  a 
great  passion.  On  the  contrary." 

He  felt  that  somehow  she  was  withdrawing  herself 
from  him  as  if  she  had,  as  it  were,  gathered  her  skirts 
closer  about  her  lest  she  should  touch  pitch  and  be 
defiled.  Yet  he  knew  that  it  was  not  her  will  that  drew 
her  away.  And  he  made  up  his  mind  to  strip  bravely 
off  the  last  coverings  of  his  old  wounds. 

"But  it  was  all  so  utterly  sordid.  No  romance  about 
it.  No  King  Cophetua  and  his  beggar-maid,  though  she 
was  not  of  my  own  class.  No  Paulo  and  Francesca,  al- 
though she  was  the  wife  of  another  man.  Oh,  I  simply 
can't  tell  you.  It  sounds  so  middle-class,  so  ridiculous. 
She  was — she  was — the  daughter  of  my  mother's  old 
cook.  And  her  husband — was — was  one  of  those  fat 
men  with  big  brown  waxed  and  perfumed  mustaches, 
who  mix  drinks  for  commercial  travelers,  and  tell  them 
the  latest  nasty  stories  over  the  bar.  Nor  was  she  her- 
self so  very  beautiful.  Only — only — I — I Ah,  is 

that  not  shame  enough?" 

' '  And  have  you  no  excuse  to  offer  ?  Lovers,  especially 
you  men,  have  always  something  of  the  sort  ready." 

In  spite  of  herself,  she  spoke  coldly.  The  vision  of 
the  other  woman  troubled  her.  And  this  sudden  revuk 
sion  of  feeling  revealed  her  to  herself.  For  a  moment 
she  was  afraid.  Was  she,  too,  standing  on  the  brink  of 


252      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

bondage  to  a  man, — a  man  not  yet  come  into  his  man- 
hood? 

Edwards  winced  under  her  rebuke.  But  the  sting  of 
her  words  roused  him.  His  tone  became  less  humble, 
more  dominating.  And  she  sighed  with  satisfaction.  It 
was  good  to  hear  him  speak  like  that. 

"Well,  yes,  I  have  some  sort  of  an  excuse.  From 
your  point  of  view,  that  is.  For  if  I  was  what  you  call 
a  sick  man  once  I  had  got  the  habit  of — of  her,  I  was 
ill,  really  ill,  before  it  tightened  its  hold  on  me.  To  use 
your  own  analogy,  I  was  like  a  child  that  carries  diph- 
theria microbes  for  years  in  its  mouth  and  that  never 
falls  sick  until  some  day,  by  chance,  it  gets  run  down 
and  catches  cold,  so  that  its  powers  of  resistance  are 
weakened.  Then  the  bacteria  creep  in  through  the 
mucous  membrane,  and  the  child  comes  down  with  diph- 
theria and  dies.  'T wasn't  only  that  I  had  been  drinking 
too  much,  you  know.  Although  that  had  something  to 
do  with  it.  Nor  that  I  was  over-worked.  Nor  that  this 
woman  had  come  into  my  life,  not  to  fill  some  minor 
empty  places,  but  to  drive  all  other  interests  out  and 
tyrannize  over  the  whole  complex.  All  these  things  to- 
gether must  have  helped  to  bring  about  the  result  that 
once,  in  court,  when  I  had  an  important  case  on  (I  was 
Medical  Examiner  then  for  a  big  insurance  company), 
I  felt  suddenly  dizzy  and  then  fainted.  The  same  after- 
noon I  went  to  see  a  doctor. 

"Don't  think  I  blame  that  kindly  old  colleague.  If 
he  had  known  my  inner  life  better,  if  I  had  told  him 
all  the  truth,  he  wouldn't  have  made  the  mistake  of 
telling  me  that  I  had  organic  heart  trouble,  and  that  I 
must  drop  all  work  and  go  away, — to  die.  I  put  the 
stethoscope  on  myself.  But  you  know  how  easily  one's 
own  ear  is  deceived  in  one's  own  case.  I  heard  the 
strong  systolic  murmur.  It  was  there,  I'm  sure,  at  the 
time.  And  the  irregular  pumping.  All  the  usual  signs. 
Eemember,  Neurology  is  a  modern  invention.  Our  fore- 
fathers didn't  have  nerves  that  got  so  tired  that  they 
caused  heart  symptoms  that  seem  organic.  I  didn't 
know  of  such  conditions  myself  then. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      253 

' '  There 's  a  well-known  painting  of  some  Englishman 
called  'Sentence  of  Death.'  A  physician  has  just  ex- 
amined a  young  man  and  told  him  that  he  has  heart  dis- 
ease. You've  seen  it,  no  doubt.  Well,  then  you'll  un- 
derstand. I  thought  I  had  two  or  three  years  at  the 
most.  My  health  was  gone;  my  career  was  at  an  end. 
What  was  there  left  ?  And  then  she  came. 

' '  You  see,  I  ought  to  have  gone  to  my  mother  and  told 
her.  But  we  'd  been  brought  up  on  the  old  idiotic  Spar- 
tan idea  of  licking  our  wounds  in  secret,  and  when 
they  were  fatal  crawling  into  some  distant  hole  to  die. 
That's  what's  called  'sparing  one's  people  unnecessary 
pain.'  The  long  and  short  of  it  was,  I  dropped  out  of 
everything  abruptly;  resigned  my  position;  engaged  a 
cabin  on  the  first  available  steamer.  But  I — I  had  to 
tell  someone.  I  wasn't  quite  strong  enough  to  shoulder 
the  whole  thing  by  myself.  At  this  one  point  I  broke." 

"And  instead  of  telling  your  mother  or  father,  you 
told  her." 

"Yes.  And  what  a  relief  it  was!  Then  she  said,  'I 
can't  stand  it  here  without  you.  You're  going  away. 
Take  me  with  you.'  ' 

' '  I  see.  Her  sharing  of  your  secret  brought  you  closer 
together  than  anything  else  could  possibly  have  done. 
You  had  to  have  someone,  naturally. — What  happened 
then?" 

"Then  I  think  I  went  off  my  head.  I  couldn't  stand 
saying  good-by,  and  being  seen,  off,  and  having  people 
wondering  what  had  happened  and  where  I  was  going. 
My  mind  wasn't  clear.  I  was  drinking  a  good  deal,  too, 
then.  So  we  simply  disappeared,  she  and  I." 

"And  that's  what  you  call  'sparing  your  people  un- 
necessary pain?'  ' 

"I  took  passage  for  her  under  another  name.  I  sup- 
posed no  one  would  ever  know.  She  said  she  never 
wanted  to  see  her  husband  again;  promised  never  to 
write  to  anyone  at  home.  And  I  was  so  wretched.  I 
thought  she'd  cheer  and  help  me.  And  after  all  I  had 
only  a  few  more  years  to  live. ' ' 

"That's  enough.     You  told  me  the  rest  before.    How 


254      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

she  neglected  you  from  the  first  day  of  the  voyage; 
flirted  with  other  men.  Stole  from  you,  didn't  she? 
And  then  deserted  you." 

"Don't  be  too  hard  on  her.  Remember,  she'd  never 
set  foot  outside  of  her  own  little  town  before.  She  was 
homesick.  She  missed  her  own  class  of  people.  She 
couldn't  get  along  with  my  kind.  They  made  her  un- 
comfortable. And  she  didn't  run  away.  She  made  me 
send  her  back.  And  for  the  three  remaining  days,  be- 
fore she  sailed  for  home,  we — we  were  very  happy.  Per- 
haps that's  why  I — I  missed  her  so." 

"And  of  course  she  had  written  to  her  people.  A 
woman  like  that  would  be  so  proud  of  being  'abroad' 
that  she'd  have  to  write.  And  so  it  was  soon  known,  I 
take  it, — your  elopement,  and  all." 

' '  Can  you  wonder  now  that  I — that  I  am  ashamed  ? ' ' 

The  old  tone  of  helplessness  came  back  into  his  voice 
To  her  it  was  like  a  call  for  help,  and  she  answered 
it. 

"Yes,  I  can.  I  think  it  must  be  because  you  were 
brought  up  in  a  little  provincial  city,  where  everyone 
knows  all  about  the  doings  of  everyone  else's  family  for 
the  last  twenty  generations.  People  who  live  in  that 
kind  of  air  never  grow.  They  are  never  themselves, 
but  only  what  they  know  that  other  people  think  they 
are.  When  a  really  big  man  or  woman  is  born  into  such 
an  atmosphere  he  gets  out  of  it.  He  can 't  breathe  there. 
Or  else  he  smashes  things  up  and  makes  a  scandal.  And 
for  years  afterwards  the  old  ladies,  as  they  come  out  of 
church  after  Matins  on  Saints'  Days,  talk  about  poor 
dear  Mrs.  Smith  and  the  terrible  way  in  which  her  son 
or  daughter  has  behaved.  You  won't  find  that  sort  of 
thing  in  a  large  city,  or  in  the  country, — the  real  coun- 
try. But  the  littleness  of  such  a  horizon  sticks  to  a  man. 
It  has  stuck  to  you,  my  friend.  It  isn't  what  you've 
done  that  makes  you  what  you  call  ashamed.  It's  the 
fact  that  people  know  about  it;  that  those  dear  old  la- 
dies on  Saints'  Days  pity  your  poor  mother,  and  talk 
of  you  under  their  breath  as  the  degenerate  scion  of  an 
old  family.  What  difference  can  it  make  to  you  whether 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      255 

or  not  there  is  one  infinitesimally  small  spot  on  the  face 
of  this  large  earth  where  people  still  speak  unkindly  of 
you,  if  indeed  they  have  not  forgotten  your  existence 
long  since  in  the  excitement  of  some  newer  scandal  ? ' ' 

"My  people  have  lived  there  for  ages.  I  remember 
my  great-grandfather's  house." 

"But  I'll  wager  it  has  been  pulled  down  by  now. 
Things  change  even  in  the  provinces.  And  what  counts 
is  not  what  you  once  were  or  what  you  once  did:  it's 
what  you  are  now.  And  the  way  to  judge  whether  any 
new  habit  or  influence  in  your  present  life  be  good  or 
not,  is  to  ask  yourself, '  Does  it  make  me  narrower,  nearer 
to  death?  Or  does  it  make  me  bigger,  more  of  a  man, 
more  alive?'  Life  is  the  only  thing  we've  got  to  hold 
to;  more  abundant,  healthier,  cleaner  life." 

Edwards  left  his  chair  and  went  to  the  window.  She 
followed.  As  they  stood  there  side  by  side  looking  down 
at  the  moonlit  lake,  a  silence  fell  between  them. 

' '  Have  you  read  many  old  English  ballads  ? "  he  asked 
abruptly.  "When  you  get  back  to  your  books  in  Inns- 
bruck, turn  up  the  first  verse  of  'Clerk  Saunders.' — 
And  now  I've  kept  you  long  enough  from  your  rest." 

"But  I  thought,"  she  interposed,  as  if  loath  to  leave 
her  place  at  the  window,  "I  thought  you  were  going  to 
tell  me  something  about  your  old  school,  and  your  friends 
there.  You  must  have  had  many  friends. — And  then, 
— the — the  other  women." 

It  was,  she  knew,  a  piece  of  curiosity  utterly  repre- 
hensible ;  but  she  could  not  have  held  back  that  question 
had  she  tried. 

"There  were  no  other  women,"  he  answered,  almost 
angrily. 

Then,  perhaps  it  was  because  she  had  mentioned  his 
old  school,  there  flashed  across  his  mind  the  memory  of 
the  letters  he  had  carried  in  his  wallet  for  five  years, — 
the  letters  he  had  torn  up  in  bitterness  of  soul  and  had 
thrown  from  this  very  window. 

He  paused.     Then  added  lamely — 

"No;  no  others.  At  least, — that  is, — there  was  one 
that  I " 


256      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

A  sudden  sense  of  friendship  outraged  flared  up  in  her. 
Her  instinct  then  had  been  right.  In  the  intensely  close 
rapport  that  had  been  established  between  them,  like 
an  electric  field  in  which  the  most  infinitesimal  current 
is  felt  and  registered,  she  had  known  that  he  was  keep- 
ing something  back. 

"Oh,  I  don't  want  to  force  your  confidence,"  she  said. 

"Force  my  confidence!"  he  repeated.  Then  he 
laughed.  "  Why,  I've  never  even  seen  her. — Really,  we 
must  get  to  sleep.  To-morrow  I  shall  need  all  my 
nerves. ' ' 

He  lighted  her  downstairs.  At  the  door  of  Frau 
Speckbacher's  room  they  parted.  But  she  scarcely  felt 
the  grasp  of  his  hand  or  heard  what  he  said.  Her  mind 
was  awhirl  with  a  thousand  conflicting  thoughts.  It 
was  almost  dawn  before  she  fell  asleep. 

Next  day  at  noon  Edwards  stood  at  her  horse's  head, 
while  she  gathered  up  the  reins. 

"Were  you  ever  in  Rome  during  Holy  Week?"  she 
asked.  "No.  Well,  there's  an  old  custom  at  St.  'John 
Lateran  that  appeals  to  me.  On  Holy  Thursday  the 
Cardinal  Grand  Penitentiary  sits  on  his  throne  with  a 
long  light  wand  in  his  hand.  The  people  come  and 
kneel  before  him,  and  he  touches  them  with  it  on  the 
shoulder.  It  is  a  relic  of  the  old  manumission  of  slaves. 
I  don't  know  what  sort  of  spiritual  effect  the  Church 
supposes  it  to  have." 

She  bent  forward  and  touched  him  on  the  shoulder 
with  her  riding-whip. 

"I'm  not  a  Cardinal,"  she  said;  "but  I — I  want  to  set 
you  free." 

He  took  her  gloved  hand,  turned  back  the  gauntlet, 
and  kissed  the  firm  white  wrist.  Tb,en,  looking  up  into 
her  eyes,  he  answered — 

"You  women  are  usurping  all  our  male  privileges. 
In  the  old  days  it  was  the  Knight  who  slew  the  Dragon 
and  delivered  the  Captive  Fair.  But  now  it's  the  other 
way  round.  And  I  am  glad  that  it  is  so." 

"See  to  it,  then,  that  your  dragons  stay  dead." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      257 

As  she  cantered  off  up  the  hill  she  murmured  to  her- 
self— 

' '  I  like  him  without  his  mustache.  Now  I  can  see  his 
mouth.  And  I  like  his  mouth  too, — somehow." 

She  felt  her  cheeks  begin  to  burn.  Then,  whipping 
up  her  mare,  she  started  at  a  mad  gallop,  her  golden 
hair  streaming  behind  her  in  the  warm  wind. 

And  that  same  night  her  inquisitive  son  was  wakened 
by  the  sound  of  his  mother's  voice  as  she  walked  to  and 
fro,  murmuring  to  herself  some  lines  from  a  collection 
of  old  English  Ballads  that  she  had  unearthed  from  the 
depths  of  Professor  Schroeder's  shelves — 

"Clerk  Saundcrs  and  May  Margaret 
Walk'd  ower  yon  garden  green, 
And  deep  and  silent  was  the  love 
That  fell  thir  twa  between." 

"Mammy,  dear,"  said  little  John  Bowman,  "is  that 
your  newest  favorite  poem ?  Won't  you  read  it  to  me  ?" 

His  mother  started,  let  the  book  fall.  Then  she 
opened  it  again,  and  read  him  to  sleep  with  the  Ballade 
of  Chevy  Chase. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

LITTLE  Helena's  legs  were  straight  at  last,  encased  in 
a  beautifully  smooth  plaster-cast.  But  the  rest  of  her 
little  body  seemed  to  resent  the  fact,  and  began  to  be- 
have very  crookedly  indeed. 

And  Joncke  was  sometimes  more  hindrance  than  help. 
His  silence,  his  reproachful  glances,  got  on  Edwards' 
nerves.  If  he  had  only  spoken  out,  blamed  him,  told 
him  that  he  had  risked  a  child's  life  for  the  sake  of  hav- 
ing a  woman  near  him,  Edwards  would  not  have  minded 
it  half  so  much.  But  this  silent  reproach  was  more  than 
he  could  bear. 

Poor  Joncke.  He  himself  was  not  much  better  off. 
For  his  former  allies,  Nani  and  Frau  Speckbacher,  had 
basely  deserted  him  and  gone  over  to  the  enemy.  On 
the  night  before  little  Helena 's  operation,  when  Edwards 
and  "Das  Fraulein"  had  sat  for  such  long  hours  to- 
gether at  the  window  of  Edwards'  room,  Joncke  had 
sought  comfort  in  the  kitchen.  To  his  surprise,  Frau 
Speckbacher  had  cut  him  very  short. 

"Na,  na,  Herr  Lehrer.  I  won't  let  anyone,  not  even 
you,  speak  lightly  of  her  in  my  presence."  The  good 
Frau  forgot  that  until  to-day  her  own  tongue  had  been 
more  than  heavy  in  this  same  matter.  "The  Herr  Dok- 
tor  looks  ten  years  younger.  Evidently  it  is  the  will  of 
God." 

Joncke  stared  dully  at  the  floor. 

"She  will  take  him  away." 

"Maybe.  But,  Herr  Lehrer,  I  will  tell  you  something, 
— in  confidence.  She  gave  me — look  for  yourself — forty 
— eighty — ONE  HUNDRED  crowns.  Half,  she  said,  was 
for  the  Herr  Doktor's  supper.  She  wants  us  to  cook 
his  dinner  too.  The  food  at  the  inn,  she  says,  is  enough 
to  make  the  Dragon  on  the  sign  sick,  let  alone  St.  George 

258 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      259 

and  his  horse.  And  the  other  half  of  the  money  is  for 
me, — for  my  extra  trouble.  But  you  must  not  tell. ' ' 

"She  will  take  him  away,"  repeated  Joncke.  "And 
then,  what — what  will  become  of  us?" 

"I  spoke  of  that,  delicately.  She  got  very  red,  the 
gracious  lady.  She  does  not  think  the  Herr  Doktor  will 
go.  Not  yet,  at  least.  But  when  he  does,  the  Frau 
Professor  at  Liebenegg  needs  a  trustworthy  person  to 
look  after  the  castle  in  the  winter.  The  woman  they 
had  last  year  sold  all  their  wood.  Even  tinned  things 
out  of  the  larder.  The  wicked  thief!" 

"But— but  what  of  me?" 

"Na,  Herr  Lehrer.  You  can  cook  your  own  supper, 
as  you  used  to  do.  And  you  have  your  work,  and  the 
children. ' ' 

"No,"  said  'Joncke,  as  if  forcing  the  words  from  his 
lips  against  some  invisible  hindrance.  "No-o-o — I — 
have — no — one.  I — am — lost.  God — has — forsaken — 
me." 

But  Frau  Speckbacher  and  Nani  only  laughed. 
'Joncke  went  slowly  to  his  room;  and  there  Edwards 
had  found  him,  after  bidding  Miss  Sparks  good-night, 
staring  moodily  at  the  flickering  flame  of  his  bedroom 
candle. 

And  now,  during  these  last  days  of  the  week,  when 
little  Helena  seemed  to  have  made  her  mind  to  return 
to  what  Frau  Speckbacher  called  the  "Soul  Gardens," 
he  scarcely  ever  spoke.  In  the  schoolroom,  as  Edwards 
often  had  a  chance  to  see,  he  was  the  same  as  usual; 
but  the  moment  that  the  outer  stimulus  of  his  daily 
work  was  gone,  he  lapsed  again  into  brooding  silence. 
Yet  without  him  little  Helena  would  have  been  in  the 
"Soul  Gardens"  long  ago.  For,  night  after  night,  he 
sat  beside  her,  never  stirring,  except  to  bend  over  her 
during  unbroken  hours  of  darkness. 

The  operation  had  been  done  on  a  Friday.  That  same 
night  the  change  for  the  worse  set  in.  On  Saturday  the 
line  on  the  fever  chart  went  up  and  up. 

Then  Sunday  came.  But  although  Edwards  left  word 
at  the  inn  and  elsewhere  that  he  was  to  be  called  at  once 


260      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

if  anyone  came  from  Liebenegg,  no  one  appeared.  He 
told  himself  that  he  had  not  expected  her;  that  she  had 
been  with  him  only  a  few  days  before.  Nevertheless  he 
was  disappointed, — bitterly  disappointed. 

On  Monday  morning,  when  he  pressed  his  ear  close  to 
little  Helena's  laboring  chest,  against  the  feverish  dry 
skin,  he  caught  the  tell-tale  whistle  of  bronchial  breath- 
ing, and  knew  that  the  alveoles  of  the  lungs  were  filling 
up. 

Pneumonia  is  seldom  dangerous  in  the  case  of  little 
children,  whose  heart-muscle  is  as  yet  unweakened  by 
alcohol,  nicotine,  and  the  poisons  of  overwork.  But  here 
it  looked  dangerous  enough.  And  by  Tuesday  Edwards 
was  at  his  wits'  end. 

He  knew  that  there  was  nothing  to  do  except  wait  for 
the  crisis.  And  Joncke  could  do  that  as  well  as  he. 

Suddenly  he  found  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind 
to  ride  over  to  Liebenegg  and  ask  for  advice.  She  had 
had,  so  she  said,  long  experience  in  nursing.  Perhaps 
the  Frau  Professor  could  spare  her  for  a  few  days  to 
come  over  and  look  after  little  Helena. 

Of  course,  he  might  have  written  a  letter.  But  it 
would  take  two  days  to  reach  her  by  the  round-about 
way  of  Kufstein.  It  would  be  far  wiser  to  go  himself. 

As  soon  as  he  had  come  to  this  decision,  his  worry  and 
ill-temper  left  him.  He  was  on  his  way  to  see  her,  and 
she  would  know  what  to  do.  It  was  true  that  she  had 
freed  him  from  his  "dragons";  but  he  doubted  if  they 
were  really  dead.  Only  in  her  presence  did  he  feel  sure 
of  it. 

"It's  hard  to  put  into  words,"  he  often  said  to  him- 
self; "but,  when  I'm  with  her,  the  things  that  used  to 
worry  me  seem  so  utterly  unimportant.  I  feel  so  alive, 
so  strong.  And,  that's  the  curious  part,  so — so  safe,  as 
if  nothing  evil  could  touch  me.  It's  because  I  trust  her 
so  implicitly,  I  suppose.  Yet  how  little  I  know  about 
her  really.  I've  told  her  everything;  she  has  told  me 
almost  nothing.  But  that  makes  no  difference.  When 
a  knight  delivered  a  lady  from  her  attendant  dragons, 
she  didn't  ask  him  who  his  great-grandfather  was.  That 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      261 

came  later.  And  men  aren't  so  inquisitive  as  women. 
There  '11  never  be  a  male  Elsa  von  Brabant,  be  the  roles 
of  the  sexes  never  so  topsy-turvily  interchanged." 

He  set  out  early  of  a  Wednesday  morning,  on  the 
Bin-germeister 's  old  white  horse,  after  giving  Joncke  all 
necessary  instructions  and  stopping  for  a  moment  at  the 
* '  Widum, ' '  where  Father  Mathias  was  standing,  sunning 
himself,  by  the  garden  gate.  His  red-rimmed  eyes  be- 
hind his  blue  goggles  gleamed  kindly,  as  he  watched 
Edwards  ride  off.  He  was  satisfied  for  his  friend.  Like 
Frau  Speckbacher,  he  had  gone  over  to  the  enemy.  In- 
deed, he  had  a  thick  letter  from  her  reposing  at  that 
very  moment  in  the  pocket  of  his  cassock.  She  had 
been  wise  enough  to  tell  him  the  truth — at  some  length, 
as  even  the  cleverest  woman  must  tell  it,  but  the  truth 
nevertheless. 

"Edwards  will  never  wear  his  old  bowler  hat  or  that 
shabby  frock-coat  again,"  he  thought.  "The  Thiersee 
episode  in  his  life  has  come  to  an  end." 

He  took  out  a  large  red  handkerchief  and  waved  it. 
Then  he  blew  his  nose  with  it.  Edwards  seemed  to  be 
riding  out  of  his  life  forever. 

From  Thiersee  to  Schloss  Liebenegg  is  a  good  twenty 
kilometers.  And  the  Burgermeister  's  old  white  horse 
had  different  ideas  of  speed  from  those  of  Miss  Sparks' 
mare.  Besides,  Edwards  had  constantly  to  ask  his  way. 
So  it  was  nearly  noon  when  he  caught  sight  of  the  end 
of  his  journey. 

Like  so  many  of  the  castles  along  the  Inn  valley, 
Liebenegg  was  built  on  a  mass  of  rock  that  rose  abruptly 
out  of  the  green  level  of  a  mountain-encircled  plain, — 
a  rock  that  suggested  the  petrified  outpouring  of  some 
ancient  volcano,  like  a  high  puff  of  steam  caught  in  mid- 
air and  turned  to  stone.  As  is  the  case  with  all  such 
coigns  of  vantage,  it  had  been  fortified  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Then  the  walls  had  fallen  into  ruin.  In  the  struggle  of 
1809  it  had  been  garrisoned  by  the  French.  Since  they 
had  left  it,  driven  out  by  Speckbacher  1  and  his  men, 

i  Andreas  Hofer's  right-hand  man,  and  the  forebear  of  all  the 
Speckbachers  now  living  in  Tyrol. 


262      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

it  had  remained  uninhabitable  until  some  fifty  years 
before  this  story,  when  a  speculator  in  real  estate,  grown 
rich  by  the  building  boom  in  Innsbruck,  bought  the  rock 
and  built  there,  amidst  the  ruins,  a  low  two-storied  pa- 
vilion between  the  remaining  twin-towers  of  the  ancient 
castle.  He  had  had  sense  enough  to  build  as  much  as  he 
could  with  the  old  material  of  the  useless  outer  walls, 
so  that  the  new  part  was  not  out  of  keeping  or  color 
with  its  surroundings.  And  in  fifty  years,  ivy  and  moss 
will  do  more  than  charity  to  cover  the  multitudinous 
sins  of  even  a  speculator  in  real  estate. 

Now  the  man  himself  was  dead,  his  sons  preferred 
Vienna  to  the  provinces;  and  the  Schroeders  had,  for 
years,  rented  the  castle  for  their  summer  home. 

Edwards  dismounted.  "When  one  has  not  sat  a  horse 
since  boyhood,  a  fifteen-mile  ride  causes  unpleasant  re- 
sults. He  must  walk  the  cramp  out  of  his  muscles  be- 
fore presenting  himself  at  the  castle.  The  road  wound 
up  the  rock  on  the  farther  side — the  one  side  of  the 
rough  cliff  that  was  thickly  wooded,  and  from  which  the 
castle  itself  was  hidden  from  view.  Leading  the  old 
white  horse  by  the  bridle,  he  climbed  on  and  up,  under 
the  great  oaks  that  shut  him  in  with  their  deep  shadows. 
At  last,  at  a  turn  in  the  road,  as  if  at  the  end  of  the 
green  tunnel  of  trees,  he  saw  an  old  stone  portal,  stand- 
ing free,  apparently  all  that  was  left,  on  this  side,  of  the 
ancient  boundary  walls. 

The  absolute  .quiet  of  noonday  lay  over  everything. 
No  one  was  to  be  seen. 

He  crossed  a  filled-in  moat  and  passed  through  the 
gate  into  a  broad  courtyard,  an  immense  level  stretch 
of  sunlit  green.  To  his  left,  hidden  among  trees,  was 
the  castle,  the  two  old  round  towers  at  either  end  rising 
above  the  masses  of  foliage.  On  the  right  the  court- 
yard was  bounded  by  a  thick  stone  wall,  breast-high. 
He  went  towards  it  and  leaned  over. 

The  wall  rimmed  the  very  edge  of  the  rock;  below 
was  a  sheer  fall  of  hundreds  of  feet.  But  what  an  out- 
look! 

Spread  out  beneath  him,  marvelously  distinct  in  every 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      263 

detail,  lay  the  valley  of  the  river  Inn,  that  wound  in 
and  out  through  the  green  fields,  the  little  clumps  of 
trees,  the  groups  of  houses  dominated  by  their  white 
church  spires — on  and  on,  until  it  ended  in  a  golden 
mist.  And  there,  where  it  disappeared,  was  a  break  in 
the  encircling  mountains,  banked  high  with  white  clouds. 
In  every  other  direction  rocky  peaks  bounded  the  hori- 
zon, most  of  them  still  covered  with  snow.  .Far  off  to 
the  right  lay  a  low  haze  of  dusty  brown ;  Kuf stein  prob- 
ably, or  some  other  small  city.  And  it  was  all  so  quiet. 
Directly  under  him,  leaving  in  the  still  air  a  trail  of 
pearly  smoke,  he  could  see  a  train,  like  a  long  black 
moving  mark,  puffing  slowly  along.  He  could  almost 
hear  the  cough  of  the  laboring  engine. 

And  sunlight !  The  courtyard  was  flooded  with  sun- 
light. 

' '  What  a  place ! "  he  said  half  aloud.  ' '  What  a  place 
for  children!  For  those  that  limp,  and  cough,  and — 
die.  They  wouldn't  die  here." 

1 '  Are  you  the  man  with  the  dog  ? ' '  demanded  a  voice. 

Edwards  spun  round  on  his  heel. 

He  saw  no  one  at  first.  Then  he  caught  sight  of  a 
long  steamer-chair,  shaded  by  a  great  striped  umbrella, 
and  of  two  bare  waving  legs.  The  legs  waved  some  more, 
were  brought  finally  to  the  ground,  and  from  beneath 
the  umbrella  appeared  a  boy.  He  seemed  about  twelve 
years  old.  His  brown  hair  was  touselled;  he  wore  a 
very  shiny  old  pair  of  Tyrolese  breeches,  and  nothing 
else. 

"Usually,"  he  explained  in  very  careful  German,  "I 
take  off  all  my  clothes.  But  in  the  afternoons  mother's 
always  afraid  someone '11  come.  Not  that  I'd  care.  I 
ain't  deformed,  you  see." 

Edwards  did  see.  No ;  he  was  certainly  not  deformed. 
But  he  looked  very  frail.  His  arms  were  too  thin;  the 
loose  leathern  breeches  flapped  pitifully  about  his  deli- 
cate hips  and  legs.  Then,  as  Edwards  said  nothing,  he 
demanded — 

"Well,  where's  my  dog?" 

Edwards  explained  that  he  was  not  the  "dog-man." 


264      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

For  an  instant  all  interest  faded  from  the  boy's  mobile 
face,  and  he  became  suddenly  mindful  of  his  manners. 

' '  Sorry, ' '  he  said.  ' '  Was  you  looking  for  anyone  spe- 
cial?" 

And  he  smiled. 

Edwards  stared  at  him;  stared  till  the  boy  grew  un- 
comfortable and  turned  to  hurry  away.  Then  at  last 
Edwards  found  his  voice. 

"I  came  to  see  Miss  Sparks.  But  if  she's  not  at  lib- 
erty, I  can  wait." 

"She's  at  luncheon  with  the  Frau  Professor  and 
mother.  I've  fed  already.  I  do  so  hate  to  sit  dawdling 
over  meals,  don't  you?" 

"Then  I'd  like  to  tie  up  my  horse,  if  you  don't  mind." 

The  boy  led  the  way  to  a  corner  of  the  courtyard  that 
lay  in  the  shadow  of  the  boundary  wall.  Here  stood 
some  rough  wooden  mangers.  Edwards  watered  his 
horse,  loosened  the  saddle-girths,  and  watched  the  boy 
as  he  shot  a  measure  of  oats  under  the  ancient  animal's 
twitching  nose. 

"Perhaps  you  11  come  out  and  sit  in  the  sun  with  me," 
said  the  boy.  "Mother  makes  me  sit  in  the  sun  all  I 
can." 

Then  he  smiled  again. 

By  chance  Edwards  looked  up,  and  caught,  against 
the  sky,  the  outline  of  the  castle  tower  rising  there  above 
the  trees.  That  gave  him  the  connecting  link.  And  in 
an  instant  he  was  far  away,  not  only  in  distance,  but  in 
time;  far  back  among  the  years  of  his  boyhood,  on  a 
green  sunlit  stretch  of  turf,  the  old  "Lower  Play- 
ground." Above  it,  against  the  sky,  rose  the  chapel 
tower.  And  by  his  side  was  a  boy  of  his  own  age,  with 
a  football  sweater  tied  around  his  neck.  And  he  was 
saying, — Edwards  could  hear  every  inflection  of  his 
voice, — "I  think  you  were  a  fool,  Charley,  to  sneak  out 
of  dormitory  last  night  and  get  us  all  gated  for  a  week. 
The  other  fellows  are  mighty  sore.  But  don 't  you  mind 
what  they  say.  I'm  your  friend."  And  then  he  had 
smiled.  Smiled,  as — as  somebody  else  had  smiled  only 
a  moment  ago. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      265 

Yes, — yes, — it  was  this  strange  delicate-looking  lad 
who  had  smiled.  Not  good  old  John, — John  who  was 
dead  these  five  long  years. 

"You  look  sort  of  done  up,"  the  boy  was  saying. 
"Can't  I  get  you  something  to  drink?  Miss  Sparks 
wouldn't  like  it  if  I  treated  you  badly.  She's  a  good 
pal  of  mine." 

Edwards  had  come  back  to  earth  once  more. 

"That's  what  she  is,"  he  repeated  with  conviction. 
"A  good  pal.  I've  ridden  over  from  Thiersee  to  see 
her.  You  know  she  comes  over  there  sometimes  to  help 
me.  One  of  our  little  children  was  operated  on,  and 
she's  not  doing  well,  so  I  thought " 

The  boy  made  a  sudden  dash  for  Edwards  and  caught 
him  by  the  arm. 

"And  I  thought  you  were  the  'dog-man,'  "  he  cried 
delightedly  in  English.  "I  must  run  and  tell  'em  that 
you're  here." 

He  started  off,  but  Edwards  detained  him  for  an  in- 
stant. 

"That's  all  very  well,"  he  said.  "But  if  you  know 
me,  I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  knowing  you. ' ' 

The  boy  broke  away  from  his  grasp.  Then,  as  he  sped 
towards  the  house,  he  called  over  his  shoulder — 

"Well,  you  ought  to  know  me  right  enough. — I'm 
John  Bowman." 

And  off  he  went,  springing  across  the  grass. 

Edwards  brushed  the  hair  out  of  his  eyes.  For  a  mo- 
ment everything  seemed  blurred.  Then  he  heard  a 
shout  of  welcome  from  the  boy.  And  out  of  the  house 
and  down  across  the  level  lawn  she  came.  He  saw  the 
boy  meet  her  half-way;  saw  her  bend  down  her  head 
and  whisper  something  in  his  ear.  Then  the  boy  ran 
on  again  towards  the  house,  probably  to  seek  his 
mother. 

A  desire  to  flee  swept  over  Edwards.  He  could  not 
picture  to  himself  how  the  boy's  mother  must  look,  and 
he  did  not  want  to  see  her.  Of  that  he  felt  sure.  At 
least,  not  now.  Nor  would  she  want  to  see  him.  She 
had  not  written;  she  meant  that  their  friendship  was 


266      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

to  cease;  and  he  must  not  seem  to  force  himself  upon 
her  here. 

But  he  was  given  no  chance  for  flight.  Before  he 
could  even  turn,  a  woman 's  hand,  his  friend 's  hand,  was 
clasped  in  his  own.  He  was  too  troubled,  too  intensely 
ill  at  ease  himself,  to  notice  how  nervous  she  looked,  how 
uncertain  were  her  words  and  actions, — she  who  was 
usually  so  supremely  sure  of  herself.  But  he  knew,  at 
least,  that  she  was  wishing  he  had  not  come. 

He  stammered  out  an  explanation.  It  sounded  very 
lame.  That  he  had  proposed,  even  in  his  wildest  mo- 
ments, to  take  her  back  with  him  to  nurse  a  sick  child, 
seemed  now  utterly  unbelievable.  Then  what  had  he 
come  for  ? 

At  that  moment,  some  cross-current  of  happy  intuition 
caught  him;  some  freshening  breeze,  blowing  from  an 
unknown  quarter,  dispelled  the  mists  of  confusion  and 
embarrassment. 

"No;  that's  all  a  mere  excuse  about  the  sick  child," 
he  said.  "I  came  to  see  you.  I  know  that  now.  I 
didn't  before." 

She  made  no  answer  for  a  moment.  Had  he  displeased 
her? 

"You  saw  the— the  boy?" 

His  thoughts,  that  had  been  centered  entirely  on  the 
joy  of  her  presence,  swung  off  at  a  tangent  again. 

"Why,  yes,"  he  answered,  speaking  more  and  more 
slowly  as  the  strangeness  of  the  situation  grew  upon 
him.  "He  said  his  name  was  Bowman — John  Bowman. 
That  he  was  here  with  his  mother.  Are  they  the  Bow- 
mans  from — from "  He  broke  off  petulantly. 

"Oh,  there  can't  be  any  mistake  about  that.  As  if  I 
shouldn't  know  Johnnie's  son.  Even  without  this  to 
help  me." 

He  snatched  an  old  leather  wallet  from  his  pocket  and 
drew  out  a  little  photograph,  soiled  and  dingy  from 
lying  so  long  against  his  heart.  He  held  it  out  to  her. 

"His  mother  sent  it  me,"  he  said.  "But  he's  not  like 
his  father — except  when  he  smiles." 

She  made  no  effort  to  take  the  picture.     He  misread 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      267 

her  completely,  thinking  that  the  matter  did  not  interest 
her. 

"She  wrote  me  too,"  he  added,  "once  every  year. 
But  I  tore  the  letters  up  a  while  ago.  I  told  you  about 
her." 

"I  don't  think  I  quite  understand." 

She  dropped  into  the  low  wicker-chair  where  the  boy 
had  been  sitting.  He  stood  before  her  unable  to  speak. 
It  had  been  easy  to  talk  with  her  in  the  protecting  shad- 
ows of  his  own  room  at  Thiersee ;  here,  however,  in  this 
pitiless  blazing  sun  that  left  no  sheltering  shade  any- 
where,— here  he  felt  tongue-tied  and  a  boor.  At  last  he 
found  his  voice,  but  it  was  only  to  ask  an  inane  question. 

"What  is  she  like,  this  Mrs.  Bowman?" 

He  could  not  see  her  face,  the  red-striped  umbrella 
at  the  back  of  the  chair  hid  it  from  him,  but  he  saw 
her  hands  move  impatiently. 

"A  very  ordinary  person,"  came  the  answer  at  last. 
"Just  a  common  American." 

"I  don't  believe  it,"  answered  Edwards,  and  he  sat 
down  at  her  feet  looking  out  at  the  view.  If  he  could 
not  see  her  face,  she  should  not  see  his.  "No,  I  don't 
believe  it.  Johnnie  would  never  have  fallen  in  love  with 
a  common  woman." 

"You  know  them  well?" 

Somehow  the  sound  of  her  voice  hurt  him  to-day. 

"I  have  never  met  Mrs.  Bowman,  but  her  husband 
was  my  dearest  friend.  We  were  at  school  together,  and 
he " 

His  voice  shook,  and  he  stopped  short. 

"Strange,  then,  that  they  should  never  have  men- 
tioned you." 

The  words  cut  him  like  a  blunt  knife.  He  stared  up 
at  the  sky  so  fixedly  that  his  eyes  grew  misty. 

"Not  strange  at  all.  Many  people  who  used  to  like 
me  aren't  exactly  proud  of  it  these  days.  They  have 
doubtless  not  yet  learned  your  gospel  of  never  being 
ashamed,  even  of  one's  unfortunate  friends.  Only 
Johnnie  wasn't  like  that,  you  see.  Men  like  Johnnie 
make  you  believe  that  honor  and  loyalty  and  clean-living 


268      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

aren't  merely  names  for  things  that  the  world  has  out- 
grown. But  forgive  me,  this  can't  interest  you.  It 
interests  me,  because  I — I  never  had  but  one  really  loyal 
friend." 

He  felt  her  hands  on  his  hair,  on  his  neck.  Now  their 
firm  grasp  was  resting  on  his  shoulders.  He  knew  that 
she  was  bending  over  him.  He  could  catch  the  near 
fragrance  of  her  quiet  breathing. 

"You  must  not  say  that.  You  are  not  often  so  slow 
to  understand  me.  But  I  am  not  quite  myself.  I  have 
not  been  able  to  ride  this  week,  and  to-day  I  feel  even 
more  of  a  weak  woman  than  usual.  You  spoke  of  let- 
ters that — that  Mrs.  Bowman  had  written  you.  Why 
did  you  destroy  them?" 

"Because  she  failed  me  like  all  the  rest." 

"That  is  not  true." 

Instead  of  answering  Edwards  began  to  laugh.  His 
laugh  rang  harsh'  and  forced.  The  woman  behind  him 
winced. 

"Of  course  it  isn't  true,"  he  said.  "I'll  tell  you 
about  it,  about  my  Impossible  Land,  and  about  the  Way 
into  it.  I've  told  you  almost  everything.  You  may  as 
well  have  this  too." 

And  he  told  her  of  his  dream ;  of  how,  in  his  loneliness, 
he  had  woven  an  intricate  web  of  romance  about  a 
woman  whom  he  had  never  seen,  a  woman  who  sent  him 
a  short  letter  once  a  year.  Of  how,  when  she  had  writ- 
ten that  she  was  coming  to  Europe,  he  had  thought  of 
nothing  else  except  the  delight  of  being  able  to  see  her 
at  last, — her  and  the  boy,  Johnnie's  boy.  Of  how  she 
had  promised  to  let  him  know  of  her  whereabouts.  And 
of  how — of  how  month  had  followed  month  and  she  had 
never  written  again. 

"And  then,"  he  went  on,  "I  found  out  by  mere  chance 
that  she  had  been  in  Innsbruck,  and  yet  had  never  asked 
or  tried  to  see  me.  I  may  have  passed  her  on  the  street 
and  not  have  known  that  it  was  she.  But  after  all,  what 
right  have  I  to  complain  ?  I  built  up  a  castle  of  dreams 
and  she  knocked  it  down.  She  needn't  have  done  that 
though.  I  didn't  ask  her  to  live  in  it,  only  to  let  me 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      269 

dream  that  she  might  some  day.  But  she  wouldn't  even 
leave  me  my  dream.  It  wouldn't  have  cost  her  much, 
one  letter  a  year,  and  it  meant  a  lot  to  me.  Why,  when 
I  was  down  in  the  mouth,  and  everything  was  going 
wrong,  and  it  didn't  really  seem  worth  while  fighting 
along  any  more,  I  used  to  take  out  those  few  letters 
of  hers.  They  were  the  only  things  I  kept  for  long, 
after  leaving  home.  I'd  take  them  out  and  re-read 
them.  She  had  a  way  of  saying  things  that  sort  of 
cheered  me  up,  something  like  you.  Of  course  it  was 
silly  of  me.  And  the  strangest  part  of  it  was  that,  in 
my  heart  of  hearts,  I  didn't  really  want  to  see  her  in 
Innsbruck  at  all,  because  I  knew  that  that  would  be 
the  end  of  my  Impossible  Land.  Yet  when  she  did  come 
there  and  never  let  me  know,  it  knocked  out  all  the 
props  from  under  me.  So  I  tore  her  letters  up.  And — 
and  now  there  isn't  any  Impossible  Land  for  me  to 
dream  about  any  more." 

Her  hands  were  lifted  from  his  shoulders.  He  turned 
his  head. 

"Why — why,*'  he  said,  jumping  to  his  feet,  and  then 
dropping  on  his  knees  beside  her  chair, — ''why,  you 
mustn't  cry,  you  know.  Not  about  my  poor  old  van- 
ished Impossible  Land.  Besides,  you'll  help  me  to  make 
another,  won't  you?" 

She  gave  him  no  answer.  He  did  not  really  ask  for 
one.  He  was  too  utterly  content  to  let  things  go  their 
own  way,  to  leave  to  her  the  ordering  of  what  was  to 
come  to  them  both.  It  was  more  than  enough  to  feel 
her  hands  in  his. 

But  suddenly  he  saw  the  blood  sweep  over  her  face 
and  neck,  and  leaning  forwards  she  slipped  her  arms 
about  his  shoulders,  and  drew  him  close.  He  felt  her 
broad  strong  bosom  pressed  against  his  cheek,  her  lips 
were  on  his  hair,  and  he  heard  her  say — 

"No  one  shall  hurt  you  ever  again, — no  one, — ever." 

A  moment  afterwards  he  was  standing  at  her  side 
near  the  courtyard  wall,  protesting  that  he  must  be 
off. 


270      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"But  you  have  had  no  luncheon.  Do  come  in  for 
coffee.  The  Frau  Professor  will  be  delighted.  And 
you  can  make  the  acquaintance  of ,"  she  smiled  con- 
tentedly,— "of  Mrs.  Bowman." 

He  would  not  hear  of  it.  He  had  eaten  something 
at  an  inn  on  the  way.  If  he  started  now  he  would  be 
at  home  before  nightfall.  He  was  on  fire  to  be  gone. 
Not  only  had  he  no  desire  to  see  Mrs.  Bowman,  but 
he  dreaded  even  more  the  grayness  of  an  anti-climax 
to  those  last  few  minutes  of  supreme  happiness.  He 
wanted  to  be  alone. 

She  was  wise  in  that  she  made  no  effort  to  detain 
him.  She  bade  him  good-by  then  and  there. 

"Next  Sunday?"  she  said;  "I'll  try." 

"And  a  week  from  Sunday,  too.  That's  the  dress- 
rehearsal  of  the  Play.  Oh,  you  must  come.  It's  just 
like  one  of  the  regular  performances." 

"You  take  a  tremendous  interest  in  it?" 

"Indeed  I  do,  and  I  know  that  poor  Joncke  is  going 
to  make  a  horrid  mess  of  it.  Yet  it  would  be  such  a 
chance  to  show  people  what — what  Christ  might  be  made 
to  mean." 

Then  answering  the  question  in  her  eyes,  he  went 
on  excitedly — 

"Not  what  he  used  to  mean,  because  that's  dead, 
like  that  hideous  wooden  image  in  the  parish  church, — 
I'll  show  it  to  you  some  day, — and  like  all  those  words 
in  the  liturgy  that  used  to  be  alive  and  thrill  you,  but 
that  don't  any  more  because  they're  dead  too.  They've 
been  kept  too  long ;  at  least  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  too 
long.  They  remind  me  of  mummied  kings  dressed  in 
their  coronation  robes  and  enthroned  at  their  own  fu- 
nerals. But  what  a  Christ  might  mean  now!  That's 
quite  different.  I'm  not  talking  about  the  idiotic  sort 
of  books  that  Protestant  preachers  write,  'What  would 
the  Lord  do  to-day  in  Liverpool?'  Their  idea  is  of  a 
God,  who  has  been  sitting  up  in  heaven  somewhere, 
coming  back  to  earth  and  having  a  bad  time  of  it.  I 

don't  mean  that.     I  mean " 

He  stopped  short.    His  eyes  were  wide,  fixed,  so  she 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      271 

thought,  on  the  lines  of  the  snow-clad  hills  above 
him. 

"Yes,"  she  whispered.    "Yes — you  mean ?" 

He  sighed.     Then  he  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"I  can't  express  it  in  words,"  he  said.  "I'm  only 
groping  after  something.  Suppose  another  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  a  man  like  him,  with  his  intense  love  for 
humanity  and  his  longing  to  help, — suppose  another 
man,  not  a  god — like  that  were  born  again  here.  What 
would  he  say  to  these  people?  What  would  he  do  to 
comfort  them?  Sometimes  I  seem  to  get  an  inkling  of 
it;  of  something  that  would  be  as  alive  and  as  full  of 
power  as  the  old  words  and  symbols  are  impotent  and 
dead.  And,"  he  concluded  lamely,  "that's  why  our 
little  Passion-Play  interests  me.  If  only  Joncke  knew 
how  to  make  people  understand;  but  he  doesn't.  And 
I  can't  tell  him, — I  don't  know  myself." 

She  put  a  silver  whistle  to  her  lips  and  blew  three 
soft  notes.  The  boy,  who  must  have  been  watching 
them  from  the  house,  came  dashing  across  the  grass. 

"The  Herr  Doktor  is  going  now,"  she  said.  "Untie 
his  horse  for  him."  Then  as  the  boy  was  doing  as  she 
had  bidden,  she  added  under  her  breath,  "He  is  very 
delicate.  Italy  gave  him  no  new  strength  at  all,  but 
here  in  the  sun  he  is  another  being.  Oh,  it's  wonderful 
what  the  sun  here  can  do ! " 

Edwards  climbed  stiffly  into  his  saddle. 

"Good-by,"  said  the  boy,  slipping  the  bridle  between 
his  fingers. 

And  he  smiled. 

Edwards  reined  in  his  horse,  and,  leaning  back,  looked 
down  into  the  boy's  eager  upturned  face.  The  boy  put 
out  his  hand.  Edwards  took  it  and  held  it  tight. 

"Your  father,"  he  said,  clearing  his  throat.  "Your 
father " 

But  he  could  get  no  further.  He  dropped  the  boy's 
hand,  gave  the  old  white  horse  a  vicious  dig  in  the  ribs 
with  his  heels,  and  rode  off  out  of  the  stone  portal,  his 
head  hanging  and  his  shoulders  bowed. 

"Mammy,"  said  the  boy,  when  Edwards  had   dis- 


272      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

appeared,  "I  wish  he  hadn't  gone.  "When  a  fellow  gets 
to  my  age  it 's  pleasant  having  another  man  about.  Will 
he  come  again  soon?" 

"I  think  so." 

"We'll  make  him." 

That  night,  when  the  boy  was  asleep,  his  mother  sat 
down  near  his  bed,  with  her  blotting-pad  on  her  knee, 
to  write.  Three  times  she  began;  as  many  times  she 
destroyed  what  she  had  written.  At  last  she  stood  up 
and  laid  her  pen  aside. 

"It's  impossible  to  explain  it  all  in  a  letter,"  she  said 
to  herself.  "If  he  had  only  come  into  the  house  for 
coffee  this  afternoon,  everything  would  have  explained 
itself.  Yet  he  must  know  who  I  am  now.  When  we're 
alone  again,  I'll  tell  him  why  I  let  him  deceive  himself 
at  first.  I  must  make  him  understand  that.  I'll  try  to 
get  hold  of  him  some  Sunday — some  Sunday  after  the 
Passion-Play. " 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

EDWARDS  had  a  long,  weary  ride  home.  He  met  only 
a  single  group  of  people  on  the  way :  a  party  of  climbers 
who  had  been  doing  some  of  the  higher  peaks.  One 
of  them  he  recognized, — Assistant  Professor  Egger,  Pro- 
fessor Schroeder's  brother-in-law,  whom  he  had  often 
seen  in  Innsbruck.  His  face  was  drawn  and  white,  he 
walked  unsteadily,  and  Edwards  told  himself  that  the 
distinguished  young  scientist  was  either  over-tired  or 
drunk.  That  he  might  be  ill  did  not  enter  his  head 
until  he  had  left  the  party  far  behind.  But  he  knew 
that  they  would  be  at  Liebenegg  within  the  hour,  and 
it  was  no  business  of  his. 

When  he  himself  reached  Thiersee  it  was  nearly  seven, 
and  he  so  stiff  that  he  could  scarcely  stand  when  he  dis- 
mounted at  the  schoolhouse  door.  He  was  dog-tired, 
at  the  very  end  of  his  strength ;  and  since  early  morning 
he  had  eaten  nothing.  At  Liebenegg  he  had  not  told 
the  truth,  but  he  had  not  wanted  to  meet  Mrs.  Bowman, 
as  he  feared  he  must  do  were  he  to  stay  there  for  after- 
noon coffee.  And  now  he  felt  too  exhausted  even  to 
rejoice  over  Joncke's  good  news,  that  little  Helena  was 
much  better.  Her  breathing  was  easier;  the  line  on 
the  temperature-chart  was  running  downhill.  It  seemed 
as  if  the  crisis  had  passed. 

At  supper  he  coughed — a  silly  little  cough  that  had 
bothered  him  lately.  But  it  stopped  when  he  got  into 
bed.  At  first  he  could  not  sleep,  he  was  too  tired.  His 
mind  went  back  over  the  adventures  of  the  day.  Uohn 
Bowman's  son,  his  Johnnie's  boy;  he  had  seen  him  in 
the  flesh  at  last.  And  she — she  had — well,  no,  she  had 
not  kissed  him;  but  she  had  held  him  so  close  that  he 
could  hear  her  heart  beat.  He  fell  asleep,  dreaming 
that  she  held  him  there  still. 

273 


274      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

He  woke  in  the  dark  with  a  jump.  He  was  bathed  in 
sweat,  even  the  bed-clothes  were  soaked  through.  It 
was  annoying,  and  it  had  been  happening  regularly  of 
late.  He  lit  the  candle  and  went  to  the  cupboard  to 
find  a  fresh  set  of  pyjamas.  The  set  he  had  been  wear- 
ing he  tossed  aside. 

Then  he  picked  up  the  jacket  slowly  from  the  floor. 

The  front  of  it  was  covered  with  blood. 

It  might  have  come  from  a  bad  nose-bleed,  but  his 
nose  did  not  feel  as  if  it  had  bled,  and  he  had  a  horrid 
taste  in  his  mouth. 

He  sat  down  by  his  desk.  But  in  a  second  he  was 
up  again. 

"No,"  he  muttered;  "I  won't  give  in.  I'll  drop  dead 
first." 

And  then  another  thought  caught  him  by  the  throat. 

"Just  my  luck.  I  can't  cumber  her  with  an  unsound 
man." 

His  glance  fell  on  a  small  package  brought  that  day 
by  the  weekly  post,  and  forgotten  on  his  desk  till  now. 
He  opened  it  eagerly.  Inside  were  two  small  bottles 
with  sealed  glass  caps,  and  wrapped  round  them  was 
a  letter  from  a  colleague  at  the  Clinic  in  Innsbruck. 
Edwards  spread  out  the  letter  before  him. 

"I  enclose  the  tuberculin,"  he  read.  "Bottle  A  is 
for  prophylactic  injections.  It  may  help.  Haven't  seen 
many  good  results  myself.  Lysin,  Rollier,  and  the  sun 
give  far  better  ones.  Bottle  B  is  old  tuberculin,  for 
diagnostic  inoculations.  Only  don 't  set  too  great  a  value 
on  it." 

"Perhaps  I'm  a  hypochondriacal  ass,"  he  said  to  him- 
self. ' '  Anyway  we  '11  see. ' ' 

He  opened  bottle  B,  found  a  small  scalpel,  sterilized 
it,  and  bared  his  upper  arm.  With  the  point  of  the 
knife  he  dug  three  small  holes  in  the  flesh.  Into  the 
two  outer  ones  he  rubbed  a  few  drops  from  the  open 
bottle.  The  other,  in  the  middle,  he  left  as  it  was.  It 
was  only  a  "control."  Then  he  went  back  to  bed. 

That  was  Wednesday  night.     On  Friday,  when  he 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      275 

stripped  for  his  morning  bath,  the  control  spot  had  al- 
most disappeared ;  but  around  the  other  two  were  spread- 
ing circles  of  red;  red,  bright  red  in  the  middle,  and 
tender  to  the  touch. 

He  had  asked  a  question  of  his  body.  Here  was  its 
answer.  For  a  moment  his  knees  crumpled  beneath  him. 
Then  he  straightened  up. 

" Another  dream-castle  blown  sky-high,"  he  said 
aloud.  "All  my  lands  are  Impossible  Lands.  But  I 
don't  care.  I  won't  give  in.  I  will  not." 

And  he  plunged  into  his  ice-cold  bath. 

Sunday  brought  no  word  or  sign  from  Liebenegg,  but 
Edwards  did  not  mind  much.  He  knew  that  there  was 
a  bad  half -hour  coming  for  both  of  them;  he  was  only 
too  glad  to  postpone  it  as  long  as  he  could.  And  then 
he  was  very  busy  with  the  Play.  Father  Mathias  and 
he  were  at  it  from  morning  to  night.  There  were  cos- 
tumes to  be  tried  on,  over-modest  actors  to  be  re-coached 
in  their  parts,  and  music  to  be  rehearsed.  For  the  priest 
had  decided  to  risk  the  strings  of  his  little  cottage  piano. 
It  would  be  hidden  in  the  trees  near  the  stage;  the 
schoolmistress  from  Kufstein  would  play,  and  he  him- 
self would  make  music  on  his  'cello.  Simple,  good, 
squared-toed  things:  Handel's  "Largo"  and  the  like. 

Edwards  arranged  to  have  six  places  reserved  for  the 
people  from  Liebenegg.  He  hoped  that  no  one  except 
Miss  Sparks  would  come,  and  the  boy.  He  was,  how- 
ever, vaguely  curious  about  Mrs.  Bowman.  It  would 
be  interesting  to  have  a  glimpse  of  her.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  she  came  he  would  have  to  speak  to  her.  And 
how  could  he  do  that  in  the  presence  of  this  other 
wroman,  to  whom  he  had  confided  his  idiotic  dreams? 

Fortunately  he  had  not  much  time  to  think  about 
himself  or  about  others.  Every  night  he  went  to  bed 
tired  out,  slept  lightly,  and  woke  feeling  unrefreshed. 
But  the  days  passed.  Before  he  knew  it,  it  was  Satur- 
day evening.  The  dress  rehearsal,  or  what  was  in  reality 
the  first  representation  of  the  Play,  was  set  for  the  mor- 
row. 

The  morrow,  Sunday,  dawned  fair.     But  the  air  was 


276      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

oppressive  and  hot.  When  he  went  to  wake  Joncke  he 
found  him  already  dressed  and  on  his  knees  before  his 
crucifix.  They  went  down  to  early  mass  together. 

By  nine  o'clock  the  little  round  amphitheater  was 
nearly  full,  mostly  with  people  from  the  neighboring 
valleys.  There  were  four  or  five  chance  tourists  from 
Dresden,  who  were  making  a  tour  through  Tyrol  on  foot, 
but  that  was  all. 

Benches  there  were  none,  only  banks  of  earth,  covered 
with  green  turf,  rising  in  a  small  semicircle  and  set  in 
the  natural  hollow  of  a  hill  that  sloped  gently  up  from 
the  shore  of  the  lake.  The  lake  itself,  shimmering 
through  the  leaves,  formed  the  background  of  the  entire 
play.  The  trees  were  the  wings,  and  between  two  great 
pines  hung  a  dark-green  curtain  that,  when  pulled  aside, 
disappeared  from  view  and  disclosed  the  stage,  a  stretch 
of  level  grass.  Indeed,  there  was  no  stage  in  the  or- 
dinary sense  of  the  word.  The  actors  were  on  the  level ; 
the  spectators  above  them,  in  the  green  semicircle. 

But  although  Edwards,  with  the  fillets  of  the  Roman 
governor  dangling  about  his  ears,  kept  peering  out  from 
behind  the  trees,  he  caught  no  glimpse  of  the  face  for 
which  he  was  searching.  The  seats  that  he  had  kept  for 
the  people  from  Liebenegg  remained  empty. 

The  Play  lasted  till  after  midday.  And  with  one 
or  two  slips,  it  went  very  well.  Perhaps  Edwards  was 
the  only  person  who  felt  any  dissatisfaction.  To  him, 
however,  it  was  painful  to  see  Joncke 's  bowed  shoulders 
and  nerveless  outstretched  hands  as  he  walked  with  his 
disciples  or  called  the  children  to  his  side.  "No  child 
would  have  come,"  thought  Edwards;  "not  one.  At 
least  no  modern  child. ' ' 

In  the  Passion  itself  Joncke  was  more  in  his  element. 
He  reveled  in  the  abasement  of  the  "Via  Crucis."  He 
was  at  his  best  in  the  short  scene  that  showed  the  Cruci- 
fixion. And  his  "Consumatum  est"  rang  through  the 
trees  like  the  song  of  a  spirit  released.  Better  still,  per- 
haps, was  the  Descent  from  the  Cross.  He  let  himself 
go  so  utterly,  relaxed  so  completely,  that,  as  it  flashed 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      277 

through  Edwards'  mind,  he  looked  deader  than  a  dead 
man. 

Edwards  took  off  his  Roman  toga  and  mingled  with 
the  spectators. 

"That's  an  epitome  of  the  whole  thing,"  he  said  to 
himself.  "When  Joncke's  at  his  best  in  the  role,  he's 
dead — deader  than  the  dead — deader  than  that  old 
wooden  image  in  the  parish  church, — deader  than  the 
Christ  he 's  trying  his  best  to  be. ' ' 

He  did  not  wait  for  the  scenes  that  followed  the 
Resurrection.  He  could  not  imagine  Joncke  as  the  vic- 
torious embodiment  of  overflowing  supernatural  life. 
Besides,  after  Easter  morning  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels 
was  a  god  divinely  revealed;  and  how  could  Joncke, 
the  schoolmaster,  and  these  peasants  suggest  all  that? 
At  such  moments  as  these,  even  the  most  cleverly  devised 
effects  of  a  great  theater  must  fail  of  their  intent.  He 
remembered,  too,  that  for  the  scene  in  the  Upper  Room 
with  the  doubting  Thomas,  Joncke  had  insisted  on  wear- 
ing white  cotton  gloves,  with  the  wounds  of  the  Passion 
marked  on  the  palms  in  red  ink.  And  had  he  seen  those 
five  white  outspread  fingers,  he  knew  that  he  must  have 
laughed. 

He  walked  alone  up  to  the  schoolhouse,  where  tables 
were  already  spread  in  the  schoolroom  and  the  big  hall. 
Nani,  who  had  no  part  in  the  Play,  but  who  was  almost 
well  again,  was  watching  over  them  with  a  blue  kerchief 
tied  around  her  closely  cropped  head.  Here,  after  the 
performance,  the  entire  village  and  their  guests  would 
eat.  They  paid  so  much  apiece  for  the  meal ;  and  what- 
ever money  was  made  went  to  Frau  Speckbacher.  It 
had  always  been  the  perquisite  of  the  woman  who  played 
the  "Mutter  Gottes." 

"No,  Herr  Doktor,"  said  Nani;  "no  one  has  come 
from  Liebenegg." 

So  they  weren't  coming.  Not  one  of  them.  And 
she  had  promised.  She  knew  how  interested  he  was  in 
the  Play.  Yet  she  had  not  cared  to  come.  It  was 
ten  days  since  he  had  seen  her, — ten  whole  days. 


278      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

What  could  have  happened? 

The  people  began  to  arrive,  hungry  and  excited.  The 
Play  was  over. 

He  went  up  to  one  old  peasant  whose  farm,  as  he 
knew,  lay  but  an  hour  from  Liebenegg.  The  old  man 
smiled  and  showed  his  toothless  gums. 

' ' Umm-m-m-mm, "  he  mumbled.  "They  be  all  gone 
away  from  the  castle, — they  be.  Went  to  Innsbruck  on 
a  Friday, — they  did.  In  three  carriages  from  Kufstein. 
I  see  'em. — Um-m-m-m." 

Gone!  And  no  word!  Not  even  a  line  to  tell  him 
why  or  where ! 

The  noise  of  the  people  eating  and  talking  together, 
discussing  the  Play,  comparing  it  with  those  they  had 
seen  in  other  valleys,  in  Brixlegg,  in  Worgl,  jarred  on 
Edwards  intolerably.  He  slipped  from  his  place  at 
Father  Mathias'  right  hand  and  went  upstairs.  Little 
Helena  was  lying  quietly  in  her  bed,  the  sun  streaming 
over  her;  and  at  her  side  sat  Toni,  the  glory  of  his  first 
public  appearance  still  upon  him,  wagging  his  red  head 
excitedly  as  he  explained  to  Helena  the  happenings  of  the 
day.  He  had  a  plate  heaped  with  big  greasy  "Plum- 
Knodln,"  masses  of  uncooked  sweetened  dough,  molded 
around  a  stewed  plum,  great  delicacies  to  the  Tyrolese 
child;  and  these  he  stuffed,  one  by  one,  into  his  mouth 
in  the  pauses  of  his  conversation.  Edwards  was  just  in 
time  to  stop  him  from  filling  Helena's  expectant  open 
lips  with  a  mess  of  the  indigestible  stuff. 

He  had  expected  to  find  Joncke  here.  As  soon  as  the 
Play  was  finished  the  schoolmaster  had  disappeared. 
Edwards  quite  understood  his  desire  to  get  away.  At 
any  other  time  he  would  have  respected  it.  But  now  he 
had  to  find  someone  to  talk  to;  he  could  not  return  to 
the  chattering  people  downstairs. 

He  tapped  lightly  on  Joncke 's  door.  As  no  one  an- 
swered, he  went  in.  The  schoolmaster  was  standing  on 
a  chair  near  the  window,  apparently  engaged  in  putting 
to  rights  the  curtains  of  his  room,  that  ran  on  a  wooden 
pole  fixed  on  two  heavy  hooks  fastened  firmly  in  the 
wall.  He  had  removed  the  pole  and  was  testing  the 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      279 

strength  of  one  of  the  hooks.  He  had  not  heard  Ed- 
wards come  in. 

At  the  touch  of  his  friend's  hand  he  whirled  about, 
terrified,  and  almost  fell  from  the  chair.  Edwards 
steadied  him,  then  helped  him  to  get  down. 

"You  look  really  ill,"  he  said,  distressed  by  the  dull 
fixity  of  the  other's  face.  "You've  been  under  a  tre- 
mendous strain.  And  I  daresay  you  haven 't  been  sleep- 
ing well  these  last  nights.  Men  don't  almost  tumble  off 
a  chair  when  someone  touches  them  unexpectedly,  unless 
their  nerves  are  all  on  edge.  What's  the  matter?  Do 
open  your  mouth  and  say  something." 

Joncke's  heavy  lips  moved.  But  no  words  came.  At 
last  Edwards  seemed  to  catch  a  few  syllables. 

"The  unpardonable  sin Sin  against  the  Holy 

Ghost. Never  forgiven. Damned Lost ' ' 

The  physician  in  Edwards  rose  at  once  in  arms. 

"Why  torment  yourself,  Emil,"  he  said,  putting  his 
hand  on  the  other's  shoulder.  "I  know  what  is  worry- 
ing you.  You  think  you  're  unworthy  to  have  played  the 
part  you  did  to-day.  Isn't  that  it?" 

Joncke  nodded.     He  clung  tight  to  Edwards'  arm. 

"But  that's  not  true,"  Edwards  went  on.  "Accord- 
ing to  your  ideals  and  belief,  no  one  would  be  worthy, 
I  suppose.  But  it's  only  make-believe,  you  know,  only 
a  play.  You  mustn't  turn  it  into  such  deadly  earnest. 
And  now  I'll  tell  you  what  I'm  going  to  do.  I'm  go- 
ing to  put  you  to  bed, — with  my  own  hands.  Other- 
wise you'll  never  go.  Then  I'll  bring  you  a  cup  of  hot 
soup,  with  a  good  dose  of  bromide.  And  I'll  darken 
the  room  and  stay  here  with  you  until  you  get  to  sleep. 
We  can't  have  you  falling  ill  now.  Thiersee  couldn't 
get  along  without  you.  Now  don't  you  move  till  I  come 
back." 

When  he  returned  he  found  Joncke  exactly  where 
he  had  left  him.  He  thought  he  had  not  moved;  nor 
had  he,  except  for  a  moment,  to  thrust  under  his  pillow 
something  that  he  had  been  hiding  beneath  his  coat. 
A  coil  of  stout  rope.  The  rope  with  which  his  hands 
had  been  bound  when  he  stood  as  Christ  before  Pilate. 


280      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Edwards  was  as  good  as  his  word.  But  Joncke  was 
like  a  lifeless  wooden  image.  Edwards  had  to  undress 
him,  to  put  him  to  bed,  to  feed  him  with  the  hot  soup, 
spoonful  by  spoonful.  This  did  not  worry  him  over- 
much ;  he  had  seen  Joncke  in  such  fits  of  intense  depres- 
sion before,  although  they  had  never  been  quite  so  bad 
as  this.  It  was  a  natural  reaction  after  the  excitement 
of  the  Passion-Play. 

He  darkened  the  room,  then  sat  down  by  the  bed, 
smoothing  back  Joncke 's  tangled  hair  from  his  eyes  and 
stroking  his  forehead  softly.  He  could  always  put  tired 
children  to  sleep  like  that. 

Now  and  again  he  heard  his  friend  mutter  indis- 
tinctly— 

"Went  to  confession — every  day  last  week. — Then 
Father  Mathias  wouldn't  let  me  come  any  more. — Said 
he  knew  what  was  best.  How  could  he  know  how  wicked 
I  was? — Said  that  I  imagined  it.  Can  a  man  imagine 
mortal  sin?" 

His  enunciation  grew  gradually  clearer  and  less  la- 
bored, as  if  some  inner  hindrance  to  the  expression  of 
his  tormenting  memories  were  slowly  dissolving  and 
leaving  them  a  freer  passage  to  the  outer  world. 

* '  Sins  of  thought.  Deadly  sins.  Thoughts — thoughts 
— such  terrible  blasphemous  thoughts! — They  would 
come.  I  had  lost  all  power  to  keep  them  out.  The 
devil,  and  not  God,  held  the  key  of  my  soul.  This  morn- 
ing, when  I  knelt  at  the  altar,  I  knew  that  I  was  re- 
ceiving the  Lord's  Body  unworthily.  Eating  and  drink- 
ing my  own  damnation.  For  there,  at  the  very  moment 
of  Communion,  the  thoughts  came  and  came  again.  I 
saw  then  that  there  was  no  hope :  that  I  was  outcast  from 
God's  mercy — forever.  And  yet — in  the  Play — I — 
I  played  the  Sinless  One, — the  Pure, — the  All-Holy. ' ' 

His  voice  grew  suddenly  shrill,  and  shook  with  the  in- 
tensity of  his  emotion. 

"Ah, — ah,  if  I  could  have  died, — up  there  on  the 
cross.  That  was  what  I  longed  for—death.  What  have 
I  to  do  with  life, — a  man  like  me?" 

Then  for  a  long  time  he  lay  silent.     The  bromide  was 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      281 

beginning  to  have  its  effect.  If  he  could  only  sleep  for 
eight  or  ten  hours  he  would  be  himself  again  when  he 
waked. 

At  last  he  put  up  his  hand  slowly  and  laid  it  on 
Edwards'  hand  that  was  stroking  his  hair. 

"Charley,"  he  stammered.  It  was  the  first  time  that, 
in  spite  of  Edwards'  encouragement,  he  had  ever  called 
his  friend  openly  by  his  Christian  name.  "Charley, 
say  thou  wilt  not  despise  me.  Don't  leave  me  all 
alone." 

Edwards  had  quick  intuitions  sometimes.  He  sat 
down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  and  took  the  schoolmaster's 
hands  in  his. 

"I  am  here,"  he  answered,  speaking  so  distinctly 
that  each  syllable  had  its  weight.  "When  thou  wakest 
I  shall  be  here  still.  Now  sleep,  little  brother,  I  am 
here  watching.  Sleep." 

He  heard  Joncke  sigh  contentedly.  Then  his  breath- 
ing became  more  regular.  In  five  minutes  he  was  asleep. 
But  Edwards  did  not  move  for  an  hour's  time,  and  only 
then  very  softly,  to  summon  Toni  from  the  opposite 
room.  He  knew  that  Joncke  might  sleep  the  whole  day 
through.  But  then  he  might  not.  And  if  he  woke  he 
must  find  him  there.  On  that  everything  depended. 

For  the  whole  dreary  length  of  that  Sunday  after- 
noon he  sat  in  the  darkened  room,  only  near  enough 
to  the  window  so  that  a  beam  of  light  might  fall  on  the 
book  that  Toni  had  brought  him.  He  wrote  a  word  of 
explanation  to  Father  Mathias.  He  tried  to  read,  but 
his  thoughts  soon  wandered.  The  noise  of  the  people 
eating  downstairs  gradually  ceased.  He  heard  them 
leaving  the  schoolhouse  in  noisy  little  groups.  Then  the 
stillness  of  a  Sunday  afternoon  settled  down  over  every- 
thing. 

Sunday  afternoons! 

How  he  had  dreaded  them,  week  in,  week  out,  during 
these  last  years.  At  Innsbruck  they  had  been  to  him 
hours  of  torment  always.  His  friends,  even  his  land- 
lady, had  left  the  house.  All  the  people  that  he  knew 
were  on  Sunday  excursions  of  some  sort.  Fathers  with 


282      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

their  children;  old  women  on  their  husbands'  arms; 
young  men  with  their  promised  brides.  That  was  why 
he  never  stirred  from  his  room  on  a  Sunday  afternoon, 
— he,  the  stranger,  the  ' '  Zugereister. ' '  The  streets  of  the 
town  were  empty;  and,  if  he  walked  into  the  country, 
he  met  so  many  happy  people,  so  many  definitely 
bounded  groups  of  common  interests  in  which  he  had  no 
share,  all  so  complete  in  themselves  that  they  had  no 
place  for  an  outsider,  and  therefore  made  him  feel  his 
loneliness  a  thousand  times  more  than  when  he  walked 
the  city's  deserted  streets. 

And  so,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  he  had  always  sat  close 
in  his  ugly  rented  quarters,  trying  to  read,  but  never 
succeeding,  and  only  seeing  ghosts  or  fighting  dragons, 
until  he  heard  the  key  of  his  stout  landlady  grate  in 
the  outer  door,  and  fled  to  her  in  the  kitchen  to  hear 
what  she  had  gathered  of  the  latest  gossip. 

But  at  Thiersee,  during  all  these  months,  this  was  the 
first  Sunday  afternoon  that  he  had  spent  alone. 

Of  late  he  had  begun  to  believe  that  there  would  never 
be  any  more  lonely  Sunday  afternoons  for  him.  Now 
he  knew  that  he  had  been  mistaken.  There  would  be 
plenty  of  them,  whole  endless  years,  until  he  closed  his 
eyes  forever  on  the  loneliest  Sunday  of  them  all. 

For  she  had  gone.  Without  a  word:  without  a  sign 
of  explanation  or  farewell. 

What  had  happened? 

Sitting  there  with  the  sleeping  schoolmaster  in  the 
silent  house,  his  imagination  painted  the  picture  for 
him  in  vivid  colors. 

Yes,  that  was  it.  Until  his  unfortunate  visit  to 
Liebenegg,  she  had  been  unaware  that  he  had  once  known 
the  Bowmans,  those  Americans  who  were  staying  at  the 
castle  with  the  Frau  Professor.  Now  that  she  had  heard 
of  his  friendship  with  ' '  Old  John, ' '  she  would  naturally 
have  spoken  about  him  to  "Old  John's  widow,"  would 
have  mentioned  his  name  for  the  first  time.  For,  no 
doubt,  she  had  not  told  anyone,  except  the  Frau  Pro- 
fessor, of  her  coming  to  Thiersee,  of  what  she  had  seen 
and  done  there.  And  then  Mrs.  Bowman  would  have 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      283 

confided  to  her  various  matters, — the  garbled  exaggerated 
version  of  his  " scandalous  past." 

He  knew  well  enough  how  it  would  sound;  could  im- 
agine the  thousand  additional  details,  all  products  of 
malicious  scandal  or  thoughtless  invention;  could  see 
her  as  she  listened,  with  the  growing  doubt  of  him  rising 
in  her  clear  eyes.  He  could  even  hear  her  unspoken 
thoughts.  "He  never  told  me  that.  He  glossed  this 
matter  over.  He  suppressed  these  incriminating  facts. 
He  made  a  good  story  of  it  all.  And  I — I  believed 
him." 

Mrs.  Bowman,  who  had  written  him  those  friendly 
letters, —  (how  far  away  and  uninteresting  they  seemed 
now!), — she  had  ceased  writing  because  she  must  have 
heard — something.  And  this  Something  she  would  have 
passed  on  to — to  her. 

So  she  had  simply  gone  away. 

And  after  all  was  that  not  the  best  thing  she  could 
have  done  ?  For  if  she  had  not  gone  he  must  have  gone 
himself. 

She — in  all  the  glory  of  her  health  and  power !  And 
he — with  those  tell-tale  circles  of  inflamed  red  on  his 
arm!  It  would  have  been  impossible — more  than  ever 
impossible,  had  she  cared  for  him.  He  could  not  burden 
her  splendid  being  with  an  unsound  life  like  his  own. 

He  stood  up  and  stretched  himself. 

Somehow  he  did  not  feel  the  intense  stress  of  loneliness 
that  he  had  always  hitherto  associated  with  unhappy 
Sunday  afternoons.  Nor  did  the  thought  of  what  Mrs. 
Bowman  had  doubtless  said  about  him  bring  him  that 
old  well-known  sense  of  sudden  sinking,  that  quick  throb- 
bing of  the  heart,  that  dizzy  feeling  of  dread  with  which 
his  body  answered  to  the  inner  torment  of  his  outraged 
self-respect.  He  could  look  forward  to  the  future  now 
manfully,  as  he  looked  back  on  the  past  without  shame. 

He  had  forgotten  how  to  feel  ashamed. 

And  she  had  taught  him  that.  It  was  she  who  had 
slain  his  dragons.  They  were  dead,  every  one. 

Should  he  not  be  grateful,  then?  Happy,  too?  For 
the  world  was  wide;  life  was  unchangingly  wonderful; 


284      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

and  there  was  work  to  be  done  somewhere ;  plenty  of  it, 
before  the  night  came  at  last. 

In  working  for  others,  in  living  for  the  best  that  was 
in  them  and  in  himself,  he  would  be  working  for  her, 
living  close  to  her  always.  Why  should  he  not  be 
happy?  Why  should  he  ever  be  lonely  again? 

In  that  moment  he  touched  the  full  stature  of  his  man- 
hood. 


CHAPTER  XXIY 

AT  first  time  passed  slowly  for  Edwards.  Then,  as 
his  life  dropped  back  into  its  old  grooves,  he  took  up 
once  more  his  habitual  tread-mill  work  among  his  people, 
and  each  hour  was  so  filled  with  the  troubles  of  others 
that  he  had  little  time  to  worry  over  his  own.  Once 
he  thought  of  riding  over  to  Liebenegg  again,  just  to 
make  certain  that  she  was  no  longer  there.  But  then 
he  told  himself  that  he  had  not  an  hour,  let  alone  a  whole 
day,  to  waste  on  such  a  fool's  errand.  There  was  too 
much  to  do. 

On  Friday  afternoon  he  came  back  to  the  school- 
house  after  a  round  of  -visits,  together  with  Joncke.  Of 
late  he  had  got  into  the  way  of  taking  his  friend  with 
him  whenever  he  was  free  of  his  school  duties.  For 
although  the  fit  of  depression  had  apparently  passed, 
Edwards  dreaded  a  recurrence  of  it  when  next  Sunday 
brought  the  first  regular  performance  of  the  Passion- 
Play.  Therefore  he  kept  Joncke  with  him  as  much  as 
possible.  He  felt  as  if,  by  his  own  personal  presence, 
he  were  holding  his  friend's  enemy  at  arm's  length,  and 
this  sense  of  his  power  to  help  pleased  him. 

As  he  and  Joncke  came  up  the  steps,  a  very  dusty 
young  man,  who  was  leaning  in  the  doorway,  hurried 
forward  to  meet  them.  He  limped  badly. 

"Herr  Kollega,"  he  said,  "I've  had  a  nasty  sprain; 
and  I  thought  I'd  ask  you  to  lend  me  a  'Gradel- 
B&ndage'  for  my  foot  till  I  get  back  to  Kuf stein.  Per- 
haps you  11  have  a  look  at  it,  too.  Why," — he  broke 
off  abruptly — "why,  it's  the  Herr  Mister.  I  didn't 
recognize  you  without  your  mustache.  You  remember 
me,  don't  you?" 

Naturally,  Edwards  remembered  him :  remembered  his 

285 


286      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

downy  black  beard,  his  hooked  nose  and  swarthy  skin, 
that  suggested  Jerusalem,  but  that  really  belonged  to 
the  Freiherr  von  Atems,  whom  Edwards  had  last  seen 
when  he  was  standing  outside  the  porter's  lodge  of  the 
Innsbruck  hospital. 

There  were  explanations  on  both  sides.  Von  Atems 
had  lost  his  father,  the  old  Freiherr,  whose  pride  in  him 
had  been  his  ambition's  spur.  Vintschgau,  his  home, 
had  been  too  full  of  painful  memories,  so  he  had  started 
on  a  walking  tour  through  the  Bavarian  highlands.  He 
had  left  Innsbruck  only  the  day  before.  And  now  he 
must  go  back  there  again.  Climbing  with  this  sprain 
was  out  of  the  question.  While  Edwards  was  bandaging 
the  twisted  ankle,  Nani  came  in  to  lay  the  supper-table. 
And  Edwards  had  to  show  off  his  surgical  handiwork. 

"I  really  owe  my  success  to  you,"  he  said,  as  he  at 
last  permitted  the  embarrassed  Nani  to  cover  up  her 
shorn  head  again.  "If  you  hadn't  described  to  me  that 
operation  of  Schroeder's,  I  should  never  have  had  the 
courage  to  try  it  myself. ' ' 

"You  do  me  too  much  honor,"  answered  von  Atems. 
Then,  as  he  limped  towards  the  door,  he  added,  "Poor 
old  Schroeder!  I  don't  suppose  he'll  ever  operate 
again. ' ' 

"Not  operate  again!    Why?" 

"Haven't  you  heard,  then?  I  suppose  news  reaches 
you  very  slowly.  And  yet  he  was  buried  last  week. 
I  was  at  the  funeral.  It  was  pitiful." 

' '  Dead  ?— The  Herr  Professor ! ' ' 

"No,  no.  Not  Schroeder.  Egger,  his  brother-in-law. 
It  was  appallingly  sudden.  It  seems  he  contracted  some 
slight  infection  about  ten  days  ago,  either  at  an  opera- 
tion or  during  a  'post-mortem.'  Those  septic  cases  are 
the  devil.  His  arm  swelled  up  a  little.  But  he'd  had 
infections  like  that  before.  And  instead  of  staying 
quietly  in  bed,  off  he  goes  with  some  friends  to  do  a 
mountain.  They  climbed  two  peaks  instead  of  one.  I 
suppose  the  exercise  and  the  heightened  circulation  sent 
the  poison  all  through  his  body.  Anyway,  when  he  got 
back  from  his  climb  he  was  very  ill.  They  took  him  to 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      287 

the  hospital.  But  it  was  too  late.  He  died  in  twenty- 
four  hours.  I  happened  to  be  in  Innsbruck  for  the 
funeral.  I  'm  not  sentimental,  you  know.  But  the  sight 
of  old  Schroeder's  face,  as  he  stumbled  along  behind  the 

hearse,  brought  a  lump  into  my  throat. No,  thanks. 

I  must  be  off.  My  friend  is  waiting1  for  me  at  the  inn. 
See  you  soon  in  the  clinic,  I  hope.  Much  obliged. — 
Good-by." 

Early  next  morning  Edwards  was  on  his  way  to 
Liebenegg.  What  he  should  find  he  did  not  know.  But 
it  seemed  probable  that  the  Schroeders  would  return  to 
the  castle  after  the  funeral.  The  Bowmans  would  surely 
not  be  there;  they  would,  of  course,  have  remained  in 
Innsbruck.  As  for  Miss  Sparks 

Well,  he  was  not  going  there  to  see  her,  but  only  to 
leave  some  message  of  condolence  for  the  kind-hearted 
old  man  who  had  been  so  good  to  him. 

He  knew  now  why  she  had  left  so  suddenly.  And 
in  the  midst  of  this  appalling  tragedy  she  would  not 
have  had  time  to  write. 

Since  hearing  the  news  of  Egger's  death  his  mind  had 
been  in  a  whirl.  She  had  begun  to  dominate  his 
thoughts  again  to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else.  Now 
as  he  rode  along  he  regretted  that  he  had  not  taken 
Joncke  with  him.  To-morrow  came  the  Play.  And  he 
had  not  liked  Joncke 's  looks  this  morning.  He  did  not 
seem  to  have  slept  much.  But  he  could  not  have  come ; 
he  had  his  school :  and  the  ride  to  Liebenegg  took  a  whole 
day. 

The  weather  was  uncertain.  A  strong  wind,  not  the 
"Foehn,"  thank  heaven,  was  chasing  banks  of  clouds 
across  the  sky.  Shade,  sunlight,  and  shadow, — Edwards 
passed  through  all  in  turn  as  the  old  white  horse  plodded 
on. 

At  last  he  came  down  into  the  level  plain,  and  caught 
sight  of  Liebenegg  on  the  top  of  its  crag.  The  sun  shone 
on  it.  He  could  not  think  of  it  otherwise  than  as  in  the 
sun.  His  mind  could  not  connect  it  with  any  thought  of 
death.  And  yet  a  long  black  pennant  floated  above  the 


288      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

big  Austrian  flag  from  the  largest  of  the  old  round  tow- 
ers. Death  had  been  there. 

But  death  had  passed.  The  dominant  note  of  the 
place  was  still  life,  even  in  the  shadow  of  death, — life 
in  superabundance. 

At  the  foot  of  the  hill,  where  the  road  began  to  wind 
upwards  among  the  trees,  Edwards  dismounted.  To-day 
he  did  not  like  to  ride  directly  up  into  the  castle-yard. 
So  he  tied  his  horse  in  the  woods,  a  little  way  from  the 
road,  that  was  even  darker  than  usual  beneath  the  thick 
oaks,-  now  that  clouds  had  covered  the  sun  again. 

As  he  pushed  through  the  thicket  back  into  the  road 
he  saw  that  someone  was  standing  on  the  other  side  of 
it  watching  him.  A  bareheaded  figure  in  deep  black,  its 
iron-gray  head  bent  forward  between  the  stooping  shoul- 
ders. 

"Ah,  I  thought  it  was  a  tramp,"  said  a  dull  toneless 
voice.  "And  so  it's  you — young  man." 

"Herr  Professor " 

Edwards'  words  stuck  in  his  throat.  In  the  presence 
of  this  overpowering  grief  words  seemed  impossible. 

"Don't  say  anything,"  the  dull  voice  went  on.  "I 
think  that 's  what  hurts  me  most — the  kind  things  people 
try  to  say.  Will  you  walk  on  with  me  a  little  ?  I  didn  't 
realize  how  far  I'd  come;  and  my  knees  are  getting 
weak." 

At  the  sight  of  the  bowed  shoulders  and  of  the  trem- 
bling hand  that  clasped  his  arm,  Edwards  felt  a  sense 
of  shock  that  frightened  him  into  silence.  Schroeder 
had  not  been  an  'old  man,  as  great  surgeons  go.  He  had 
been  spare,  but  strong,  with  the  tense  strength  of  a  taut 
bowstring.  Now  the  bow  was  broken,  and  the  man  was 
broken  too. 

"You'd  think,  wouldn't  you,"  said  the  same  sad  voice 
at  his  side,  "that  we  surgeons  would  get  used  to  death? 
That  to  us,  as  scientific  men,  it  would  be  simply  a 
phenomenon  of  nature,  like  the  dissolution  of  any  or- 
ganic combination.  But  we  don't  get  used  to  it  some- 
how. At  least  I — I  don't.  I  try  to  find  excuses  for 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      289 

myself.  You  see,  Professor  Egger, — Hans, — was — was 
my  life.  My  scientific  life,  I  mean.  And  that's  the 
only  life  that  counts  with  men  like  me.  All  our  in- 
terests, all  our  affections,  get  centered,  not  in  the  people 
who  understand  us  at  home,  who  give  us  what  we  need 
to  wear  and  eat,  but  in  those  who  understand  us  in 
our  laboratories,  our  clinics — understand  what  we've 
been  working  for,  what  we've  been  groping  after.  And 
then  Hans  was  something  more  than  simply  the  son  of 
my  brain.  He  was  my — my  champion.  My  theories, 
that  people  laughed  at  twenty  years  ago,  he  worked 
them  out  and  set  them  on  a  firm  basis  of  experimental 
fact.  You  see,  young  man,  he  was  my  friend  too.  And 
when  suddenly,  in  three  days,  all  that  goes, — well,  I'm 
not  ashamed  to  have  it  break  me — not  ashamed." 

They  walked  on  in  silence  for  several  minutes.  Then 
Edwards  forced  himself  to  speak. 

"Herr  Professor,  I  have  never  had  a  chance  to — to 
thank  you  for  all  your  kindness, — for  the  instruments, 
and  the " 

The  white  hand  on  his  arm  fluttered  in  remonstrance. 

"It  did  no  good.  Oh,  I'm  sure  it  was  of  use  to 
you.  But  I  didn't  take  all  that  trouble  exactly  for  you, 
young  man.  Do  you  remember  the  day  you  came  to  my 
room  at  the  clinic?  Hans  was  there  with  me.  And 
I  felt  the  contrast  between  us.  You  were  in  the  shadow. 
We  were  in  the  sun.  I  knew,  by  some  trick  of  the  sub- 
conscious, that  I  was  getting  too  much  out  of  life.  More 
than  my  share.  That  soon  misfortune  must  come  so  as 
to  even  things  out.  You  remember  King  Gyges  and  his 
Ring.  How  he  trembled  because  all  things  prospered 
with  him,  and  so  threw  away,  as  a  sort  of  offering  to 
Nemesis,  a  ring  that  he  treasured,  the  most  precious  of  all 
his  possessions.  And  how  it  did  no  good;  how  Nemesis 
gripped  him  at  last.  That  was  what  I  meant  when  I 
tried  to  be  of  use  to  you.  How  long  ago  was  that  ?  Not 
five  months!  And  now  I  am  in  the  shadow. — Do  you 
know,  I  can't  bear  the  sun.  Can't  bear  to  walk  in  it. 
That's  why  I  like  this  dark  road." 


290      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"But  Liebenegg,"  Edwards  interposed.  "You've 
nothing  but  sun  there.  Light  and  life.  It  means  only 
that  to  me." 

The  Professor  lifted  his  eyes;  the  suggestion  of  a 
smile  played  about  his  lips. 

"Of  course  it  means  that  to  you,  young  man,"  he 
said.  "I'm  sure  I  trust  that  it  may  be  so  always.  My 
wife  and  I  shall  probably  never  come  here  again.  But 
you  two  young  people, — and  the  boy, — you  belong  at 
Liebenegg.  You  belong  in  the  sun.  I  hope  you'll  be 
very  happy  there. ' ' 

"I? — What  boy?  What  young  people,  Herr  Profes- 
sor?" 

"Why,  Mrs.  Bowman,  naturally,  and  her  son."  The 
old  man  stood  still  and  took  Edwards  affectionately  by 
the  hand.  "I'm  always  glad  to  see  people  get  out  into 
the  light.  You've  had  more  than  your  share  of  the 
shadow,  you  know.  Oh,  we've  heard  a  lot  about  you 
during  these  last  weeks,  my  wife  more  than  I.  But  she 
wrote  it  all  to  me  in  Innsbruck.  It  seemed  such  a  tangle 
at  first.  My  wanting  them  to  keep  an  eye  on  you  at 
Thiersee;  and  then  their  missing  you  somehow  at  Kuf- 
stein  and  leaving  you  alone  for  so  long.  But  it  has  come 
out  all  right.  Grace  Bowman  usually  makes  things 
come  out  right.  As  a  rule  I  don't  like  Americans.  But 
she  is  of  no  country  and  of  no  race.  She 's  just  a  splen- 
did woman.  And  she  has  had  enough  hospital  experi- 
ence to  tell  a  scalpel  from  a  probe.  But  of  course  you 
know  all  that  far  better  than  I.  I  'd  like  to  have  seen  you 
two  doing  that  craniotomy  together.  How's  the  pa- 
tient?" 

A  flash  of  interest  had  lit  up  the  Professor's  eyes. 
Edwards  was  glad  that  those  sad  old  eyes  were  not 
then  fixed  on  him,  otherwise  he  must  have  betrayed  him- 
self. As  it  was,  he  had  time  to  find  his  voice,  and  cour- 
age enough  to  put  the  question  that  had  been  several 
times  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue. 

' '  And  is — is  Miss — is  she  at  the  castle  now  ? ' ' 
"Yes.     My  wife  simply  couldn't  get   along  without 
her.    She  took  hold  at  once  and  helped  us  in  all  our 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      291 

trouble;  arranged  things;  saw  people  for  us;  stood  be- 
tween us  and  so  much  that  was  too  bitter  to  bear.  She 's 
a  wonderful  person.  So  capable!  But  then  a  woman 
like  that  with  a  big  fortune  in  trust  for  the  boy  has  to 
have  a  head  on  her  shoulders." 

"I  didn't  guess, — I  didn't  know,"  stammered  Ed- 
wards. 

The  old  man  gave  the  ghost  of  a  chuckle  that  ended 
in  a  sob. 

"I  told  her  you  didn't  know.  She  thought  that  be- 
cause you'd  been  her  husband's  friend  you  must  realize 
how  matters  stood.  Not  that  the  money  came  from  the 
husband,  poor  lad.  It's  from  his  grandfather.  One 
of  those  fortunes,  not  big  for  you  in  America,  I  suppose, 
but  tremendous  to  us  here,  that  were  once  made  in  real 
estate  years  ago,  and  have  been  carefully  held  together 
ever  since.  So  of  course  you  couldn  't  have  known.  But 
at  first  she  was  so  suspicious.  Not  exactly  suspicious 
either.  But — well,  between  ourselves,  I  imagine  that 
it  wasn't  mere  chance  her  getting  my  wife's  aunt  in 
America  to  give  her  letters  to  us.  I  believe  she  knew 
you  were  here  somewhere  all  the  time.  That  you  had 
been  in  her  thoughts  for  years.  And  that  she  had  made 
up  her  mind  to  have  a  look  at  you,  and — and  see  for  her- 
self. ' ' 

"See  what  for  herself?" 

The  Professor's  voice  sounded  slightly  uncertain  and 
distressed  as  he  answered — 

11  There's  nothing  to  get  on  your  high  horse  about, 
young  man.  She  had  heard  unpleasant  things  about 
you, — doubtless  a  pack  of  lies, — and  she  wanted  to  find 
out  the  truth.  You  needn't  look  so  black.  I  supposed 
she  had  told  you  that  herself  long  since.  Lucky  for 
you  that  she  had  pluck  enough — yes,  and  interest 
enough  in  you, — to  come  and  see  with  her  own  eyes. 
She  saw  nothing  but  good,  didn  't  she  ?  And  now  you  're 
in  the  sun, — you  and  she." 

Edwards  turned  aside. 

"I  don't  think  I'll  come  any  farther,  sir,"  he  said. 
"I  had  only  intended  to  leave  some  message  of  sym- 


292      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

pathy  for  the  Frau  Professor  and  yourself.  I  hadn't 
hoped  to  have  the  chance  of  actually  speaking  with  you. 
So  the  intention  of  my  ride  over  from  Thiersee  is  more 
than  fulfilled.  Miss — Mrs.  Bowman  will  probably  send 
for  me,  if  it  interests  her  to  do  so. ' ' 

"If  it  interests  her  to  do  so,  indeed!  What  a  curi- 
ous way  you  Americans  have  of  putting  things."  Then 
he  added  wistfully :  "I  hope  I  haven 't  said  anything  to 
bother  you.  I  should  be  sorry.  But  just  now,  half 
the  time  I  don't  know  what  I  am  saying.  So  you'll 
forgive  the  clumsy  tongue  of  a  tired  old  man." 

Edwards  bade  him  a  hasty  good-by,  and  stumbled 
blindly  back  towards  the  thicket,  where  he  had  tied  his 
horse.  When  he  had  mounted  and  ridden  out  into  the 
road,  he  saw  the  Professor  beckoning  to  him. 

"I  forgot,"  said  the  old  man,  as  Edwards  reined  in 
beside  him.  "Will  you  keep  us  some  seats  for  your 
Passion-Play  to-morrow?  I  shan't  be  there  myself. 
I'm  going  back  to  the  Clinic  soon  to  work.  To  work 
hard.  But  my  wife  and  the  others  will  come." 

Then,  as  Edwards  was  about  to  wheel  his  horse,  he 
asked  abruptly — 

"Have  you  a  father  still  living?" 

Edwards  nodded.  The  Professor  leaned  forward 
upon  his  stick,  his  eyes  on  the  ground. 

"Then,  go  home  and  see  him  sometimes,"  he  said 
softly.  "We  old  people  get  very  lonely." 

He  turned  and  walked  up  towards  the  castle,  his 
solitary  figure  soon  blotted  into  shapelessness  by  the 
heavy  shadows  of  the  overhanging  trees. 

Some  good  angel  must  have  shown  Edwards  the  way 
back  to  Thiersee  that  night.  He  could  never  have  found 
it  for  himself. 

"Deceit.  Deceit,"  he  kept  repeating  to  himself. 
"Deceit  from  beginning  to  end.  She  came  to  spy  on 
me.  She  wormed  her  way  into  my  life.  She  forced 
my  confidence  by  a  trick.  And  what  did  Father 
Mathias  say  about  a  forced  confidence  ?  That  you  always 
hated  the  person  who  had  forced  it.  Yes,  but — but  I 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      293 

don't  hate  her,  somehow.  That's  the  worst  of  it.  I 
ought  to,  and  I  can't.  Of  course,  she  never  wrote  to 
me  from  Liebenegg.  I  should  have  recognized  her  hand- 
writing !  Her  handwriting !  And  I  told  her  about  those 
letters." 

He  actually  shivered  at  the  thought,  it  hurt  him 
so. 

"Imagine  me  sitting  there  at  her  feet  and  confessing 
to  her — to  her — how  I  had  kept  her  letters,  and  how  I 
had  dreamed  of  making  her  care  for  me.  And  my  Im- 
possible Land!  What  a  self -conceited  idiot  she  must 
have  thought  me.  Oh,  it  was  cruel  of  her  to  let  me  so 
humiliate  myself.  Cruel.  Cruel." 

During  all  the  long  five  hours  of  that  ride  he  could 
think  of  nothing  else. 

Why  had  she  done  it?  Had  he  not  heard  her  whis- 
per that  no  one  should  hurt  him  again?  And  yet  no 
one  had  ever  hurt  him  so  deeply  as  she. 

How  could  he  face  her  now?  She  would  be  at  the 
Play  to-morrow.  He  must  see  her ;  speak  with  her,  per- 
haps. And  he  could  not  bear  it.  He  would  not  act: 
they  must  find  someone*  else  to  play  his  part. 

He  rode  up  to  the  steps  of  the  schoolhouse  as  the  sun 
was  setting,  tired  out,  conscious  only  of  a  desire  to  get 
away  somewhere  where  she  could  not  find  him.  Father 
Mathias,  his  gray  hair  flying  in  strands  behind  him, 
came  rushing  out  of  the  door.  Before  Edwards  could 
dismount  the  little  priest  had  him  tightly  by  the  arm,  so 
tightly  that  Edwards  cried  out. 

"Hush,  hush!"  whispered  the  priest,  his  voice  shak- 
ing with  distress.  "Thank  God,  you  are  here  at  last. 
Thank  God.  By  His  mercy,  we  have  had  a  narrow 
escape.  Toni  found  him,  and  cut  him  down  just  in 
time." 

"Cut  him  down?     Is  the  whole  world  gone  mad?" 

"Almost.  It's  Joncke.  He  tried  to  hang  himself  to 
one  of  the  hooks  that  support  his  window  curtains." 

"Where  is  he  now?" 

Edwards  started  up  the  steps  on  a  run. 

'  *  In  bed.    Quiet,  but  quite  out  of  his  mind.    He  thinks 


294      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

that  he  has  murdered  you,  and  that  he  is  in  Hell  with 
the  Damned.  You'll  have  to  take  him  into  Innsbruck, 
to  the  Clinic." 

Here  was  his  chance  to  get  away  from  Thiersee.  Ed- 
wards gave  a  sigh  of  relief. 

"I'll  go  early  to-morrow." 

"To-morrow." 

Father  Mathias  had  followed  Edwards  up  the  steps, 
and  was  clinging  to  his  arm. 

"To-morrow  is  the  Play.  The  Prince-Bishop  is  com- 
ing. And  you  must  play  the  Christ  for  us.  You  must. 
You  must." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

IT  was  still  dark  when  Edwards  was  awakened  by  a 
handful  of  gravel  rattling  against  his  window-pane.  On 
the  garden  path  outside  stood  Franzl. 

"Come  for  a  swim  before  mass,"  he  called  softly. 

Edwards  shaved  and  dressed.  He  stole  into  Joncke's 
room.  Nani,  tired  out  with  watching,  was  nodding  by 
the  bed.  The  schoolmaster  himself  was  asleep.  He  tip- 
toed noiselessly  out  of  the  house. 

The  Angelus,  that  rings  at  half -past  four  every  morn- 
ing in  summer,  came  pealing  out  on  the  fresh  morning 
air  as  he  and  Franzl,  arm-in-arm,  hurried  together  down 
the  hill. 

The  bathing-place  was  near  the  spot  where  the  little 
Passion-Play  theater  had  been  set  up.  It  was  like  bath- 
ing in  a  lake  behind  the  scenes. 

In  silence  they  slipped  into  the  water.  Edwards 
swam  out  very  quietly.  Franzl's  head  cut  the  water  at 
his  shoulder.  He  turned  on  his  back  to  look  at  the 
sky.  The  sun  would  be  up  presently.  So  he  faced 
about  and  swam  in  again. 

But  it  was  nearer  sunrise  than  he  had  thought.  For, 
as  he  came  out  of  the  water  shaking  the  silvery  drops 
from  his  thick  hair,  the  first  long  level  rays  of  day  shot 
out  across  the  break  in  the  eastern  mountain-chain,  and 
covered  him  with  a  moment's  glory. 

Franzl,  on  his  knees  beside  his  scattered  clothes,  looked 
up  and  marveled. 

"No,"  he  said,  as  Edwards  reached  towards  his  own 
belongings.  ' '  No — I  will  dress  thee.  It  has  always  been 
the  custom.  And  to-day  I  am  glad  to  be  Saint  John. ' ' 

So  Edwards  suffered  it. 

Then  they  went  up  to  the  church  together.  There 
was  an  hour  yet  before  the  early  mass,  and  Edwards 

295 


296      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

spent  it  sitting  in  the  sun  on  the  church  threshold,  with 
Franzl  standing  close  behind  him,  like  some  great  vassal 
in  attendance  on  his  sovereign  lord.  He  did  not  realize 
that  he  was  sitting  on  "poor  Holtzmann's"  grave. 

And  there,  there  came  to  him  the  understanding  that 
this  was  to  be  his  last  day  in  Thiersee.  He  must  make 
the  most  of  it:  must  give  all  that  was  left  in  him  to 
give. 

At  six  o'clock  Father  Mathias  found  him  still  sitting 
in  the  sunshine,  wide-eyed  and  motionless.  He  was 
coughing,  and  looked  very  pale. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

AT  Thiersee  they  talk  of  that  Passion-Play  still.  They 
have  had  no  Play  since  then;  nor  is  there  ever  like  to 
be  another. 

Why? 

Well,  if  by  chance  you  ever  meet  the  Prince-Bishop 
of  Brixen,  a  very  courteous  young  prelate,  with  a  small 
aristocratic  face,  and  if  you  wish  to  make  him,  who  is 
the  embodiment  of  assured  self-confidence,  feel  miserably 
ill  at  ease — ask  him. 

Ask  him  about  Thiersee  and  that  Passion-Play. 

If  it  is  early  in  the  morning,  and  he  is  still  in  the 
dogmatico-dyspeptic  mood  that  precedes  his  luncheon,  he 
will  tell  you  that  it  was  scandalous. 

But  should  you  be  presented  to  him,  say  in  the  house 
of  one  of  the  "Cammerieri  Segreti"  of  His  Holiness 
(and  there  is  one  who  lives  not  far  from  Brixen),  and  if 
the  dinner  has  been  good  and  the  wine  to  his  taste,  for 
there  is  an  element  in  his  character  that  used  to  be  con- 
nected with  being  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar,  but  that 
seems  now  out  of  date;  if,  I  say,  all  these  things  work 
together  for  his  welfare  and  yours,  and  you  ask  him  then 
about  Thiersee,  he  will  tell  you — maybe — what  he  thinks. 

No  doubt  he  will  begin  by  remarking  that  "the  truths 
of  the  Christian  religion  are  susceptible  of  receiving  light 
from  many  divergent  sources."  But,  like  as  not,  he 
will  take  his  cigar  out  of  his  mouth,  will  knock  off  the 
ash  against  his  big  episcopal  ring,  and  will  say — 

"I  never  saw  anything  like  it  in  my  life.  It  made 
me  cry, — me!" 

And  if  it  made  the  Prince-Bishop  of  Brixen  cry,  who 
is  drier  than  the  dust  of  his  own  see-city, — and  that  is 
very  dry  indeed, — what  do  you  suppose  it  did  to  the 
people  of  Thiersee? 

m. 


298      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

And  what  to  one  woman,  who  watched  it  from  start  to 
finish,  not  only  with  her  eyes,  but  with  her  whole  heart  ? 

At  the  last  moment,  Mrs.  Bowman  and  her  son  had 
ridden  over  alone  from  Liebenegg,  starting  before  sun- 
rise in  the  chill  of  the  early  morning.  Late  on  Satur- 
day the  Frau  Professor  had  decided  to  go  into  Innsbruck 
with  her  husband.  And  Miss  Sparks  went  with  them. 
So  only  two  people  sat  on  the  little  green  mound  of  turf 
that  had  been  reserved  for  them,  facing  the  stage,  on 
the  floor  of  the  semicircular  theater, — a  tall  woman  in 
a  riding-habit,  with  hair  of  a  dull  coppery  gold,  and  a 
delicate-looking  boy,  who  seemed  very  uncomfortable  in 
his  black  coat  and  turned-down  collar.  Amidst  the 
company  of  peasants,  in  their  brightly-colored  clothes, 
they  were  intensely  conspicuous.  But  they  did  not 
notice  it.  Nor  did  anyone  notice  them,  after  the  Play 
began. 

It  was  half-past  nine.  The  sun  poured  down  over 
the  little  amphitheater.  But  the  stage,  naturally  defined 
by  the  two  tall  pines  with  the  green  curtain  spread  be- 
tween them,  was  largely  in  the  shadow.  For  the  leaves 
were  thick  there,  and  only  let  gleams  of  sunlight  through 
upon  the  golden-flecked  grass. 

Kemember,  it  was  a  tiny  place.  There  could  not  have 
been  more  than  two  hundred  people  crowded  together 
in  that  small  semicircle  on  the  sloping  side  of  the  hill, 
in  whose  flanks  it  lay.  The  green  curtain,  fading  into 
the  green  of  the  foliage,  marked  off  a  space  scarcely 
thirty  feet  wide.  On  either  side  of  it  one  saw  the  other 
trees;  and  between  them,  in  the  back-ground,  the  water 
of  the  lake. 

At  last,  Father  Mathias  appeared  in  his  best  cassock 
and  biretta.  At  his  side  was  a  very  tall,  very  thin,  very 
red-nosed  gentleman  in  the  dark-blue  uniform  of  the 
Austrian  civil  functionaries,  hitching  up  his  sword  with 
one  hand,  and  with  the  other  clasping  his  cocked  hat  to 
his  bosom.  He  had  no  plume  in  his  hat,  because  he 
was  not  a  very  high  official ;  but  he  was  the  highest  that 
Father  Mathias  had  been  able  to  lay  hold  of.  And  be- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      299 

hind  him  came  a  very  wonderful  personage  indeed.  A 
large  and  imposing  gentleman,  all  in  shimmering  scarlet, 
with  a  ring  on  his  finger,  and — no,  not  bells  on  his  toes, — 
but  what  was  much  finer,  a  big  golden  cross  on  his 
breast,  and  on  top  of  his  short,  wiry,  black  hair  a  tiny 
scarlet  skull-cap.  Everybody  stood  up ;  and  little  John 
Bowman,  being  a  Protestant,  and  only  used  to  bishops  in 
black  magpies,  peeped  out  in  awe  from  beneath  his 
mother's  arm,  and  wondered  what  part  in  the  Play  this 
glorious  person  was  to  take.  God  Almighty,  probably, 
thought  little  John. 

The  Prince-Bishop  and  the  thin  official  sat  down  on 
two  chairs,  placed  in  the  exact  center  of  the  theater,  the 
bishop 's  chair  being  just  a  little  bit  in  front  of  the  other. 
Then,  everybody  else  sat  down  too,  except  Father  Ma- 
thias,  who  went  forward  and  stood  before  the  green 
curtain. 

"Your  Grace, — Herr  Bezirks-Kommisar,— and  all  our 
kind  friends,"  he  began, — "we  have  had  a  serious  loss, 
which  is  known,  I  am  sure,  to  only  a  very  few  among 
you.  Our  schoolmaster,  who  was  to  play  the  greatest 
of  all  roles,  has  been  taken  ill. ' ' 

"Ah,  that's  why  I  haven't  seen  him  anywhere,"  said 
Grace  Bowman  to  herself.  "He  must  be  with  the  sick 
schoolmaster. ' ' 

"When  she  began  to  pay  attention  again,  the  priest 
was  saying — 

"As  Your  Grace  knows,  you  who  have  but  lately  re- 
turned from  the  City  of  the  Catacombs,  there  is  a  very 
old  tradition  for  depicting  Our  Saviour  as  a  beardless 
man.  All  the  early  mosaics  show  Him  thus ;  and  to  make 
an  artificial  type  by  the  use  of  an  artificial  beard  would 
have  done  needless  violence  to  our  one  principle  of  nat- 
uralness and  simplicity.  I  say  this  only  for  those  who 
come  from  a  distance  and  who  do  not  know  Thiersee  well. 
To  those  of  you  who  have  lived  in  our  midst  during  the 
last  six  months  there  will  be  nothing  strange  in  this  pic- 
ture of  a  beardless  Christ.  For, — I  say  it  reverently — 
it  is  a  face  that  has  looked  on  you  all  with  love  and  de- 
votion; lips  that  have  spoken  to  you  tidings  of  good 


300      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

cheer;  and  arms  that  have  upheld  many  of  you  in  the 
hour  of  your  greatest  need." 

His  voice  trembled  a  little.     Then  he  went  on — 

"You  must  pardon  us  if,  because  of  all  this,  our  'Mys- 
tery' does  not  move  quite  so  smoothly  as  usual.  I  my- 
self must  play  both  Pilate  and  the  'cello." 

He  spread  his  fat  little  hands  appealingly  abroad,  and 
bowed  to  the  Prince-Bishop. 

1 '  Your  Grace,  have  we  your  permission  to  begin  ? ' ' 

Grace  Bowman 's  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  green  curtains 
that  waved  slightly  as  Father  Mathias  disappeared  be- 
hind them.  She  knew  now  what  was  coming.  It  seemed 
as  if  she  had  always  known  that  thus  it  must  be. 

From  somewhere  among  the  trees  a  few  chords  were 
struck  on  a  piano.  Then  a  'cello  began  to  play,  and  it 
played  "ADESTE  FIDELES." 

At  the  last  notes  of  the  hymn  the  curtains  parted,  just 
enough  to  let  a  small  form  pass  through, — a  red-haired 
boy,  who  limped  a  little,  dressed  in  a  spotless  white  alb, 
with  crossed  white  stole,  and  in  his  hand  the  white  wand 
of  a  herald. 

With  his  free  hand  he  held  back  a  fold  of  the  curtain, 
and  his  fresh  young  voice  rang  out — 

"Fair  gentles  all,  here  shall  ye  see 
Of  Christ's  dear  life  a  Mystery; 
How  long  ago  our  earth  He  trod, 
A  man  like  us,  and  yet  a  God ; 
Of  how  on  shameful  Cross  He  died 
For  us,  at  that  first  Eastertide, 
Of  how  He  rose  and  went  away, 
To  come  once  more  at  the  last  day." 

The  Herald  paused  and  took  a  step  forward— • 

"Yet  not  with  pomp  of  worldly  stage 
Would   we  your   earnest   thoughts    engage. 
We  cannot  bring  to  please  you  now 
The  arts  of  Oberammergau, 
With  costly  costumes,   posturings, 
Until  withdrawn  from  earthly  things, 
Ye  hear  the  sweep  of  angels'  wings." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      301 

He  stretched  out  both  hands  as  if  to  include  everyone 
around  him — 

"We're  simple  folk;  we  look  to  you 
To  lend  your  grace  to  all  we  do; 
With  gold  our  dross  to  overlay, 
And  so  with  glory  deck  our  play." 

Stepping  out  still  farther  into  the  sunlit  amphitheater, 
he  made  a  bow  towards  the  thin  official  with  the  red 
rose — 

"Thou,  in  whose  hands  our  Sovereign  lays 
His  civil  powers,  be  kind  and  praise." 

Then,  advancing  to  the  side  of  the  Prince-Bishop's 
chair,  he  dropped  on  one  knee,  and  bent  his  head — 

"And  thou,  dread  Prince  and  Pontiff,  see, 
With  folded  hands  and  bended  knee; 
We  beg  Thy  blessing  reverently." 

"Whatever  else  the  Bishop  of  Brixen  may  be  (and  he 
is  all  things  to  all  men),  he  is  a  great  prince  and  a 
greater  gentleman.  As  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  bended 
head,  he  leaned  forward  and  helped  the  Herald  to  his 
feet,  for  he  saw  that  the  child  was  lame. 

Toni  drew  back  towards  the  curtain — 

"And  ye,  good  people,  row  on  row, 
One  thing  I  pray  ye  ere  I  go. 
Let  no  applause  or  loud  acclaim 
Bring  to  our  cheeks  the  blush   of  shame, 
So  when  my  herald's  voice  shall  cease, 
I  beg  ye  humbly  hold  your  peace. 
In   silence,   hear  our   Mystery. 
And,  if  it  please  ye  presently, 
I  pray  ye,  hold  your  peace  again." 

He  cast  his  great  gray  eyes  heavenward,  and  slowly 
made  the  sign  of  the  cross — 

"And  so, — God  bless  us  all. — Amen." 

The  last  word  was  like  a  sigh,  almost  too  soft  to  be 
heard,  vibrating  gently  into  silence  on  the  summer  air. 


302      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Before  it  died  away  the  Herald  had  disappeared. 

The  curtains  parted,  vanishing  completely,  as  if  rolled 
up  inside  the  trunks  of  the  two  great  supporting  pines. 
The  whole  outlook  was  free  now.  Yet  one  saw  nothing 
except  the  trees,  the  lake,  and  three  or  four  boats  pulled 
up  on  the  shore. 

Fishermen  came  down  with  their  mended  nets — old 
Zebedee  among  them.  They  were  waiting  for  Peter  and 
John,  who  had  gone  off  to  Capernaum.  Then  the  two 
missing  ones  appeared,  overflowing  with  excitement. 
They  had  been  with  the  new  Rabbi,  the  Messiah;  they 
had  seen  him  heal  a  leper,  and  had  been  promised  high 
places  in  His  Kingdom  as  fishers  of  men.  But  the 
others  laughed  at  them.  Would  the  Messiah,  when  he 
came,  choose  poor  unlearned  men  for  his  companions? 

Troubled  by  this  carping  criticism,  the  enthusiasm  of 
Peter  and  John  began  to  cool.  Now  that  they  were  back 
among  their  customary  surroundings,  they  were  not  so 
sure  about  the  Messiah.  Old  Zebedee  spat  on  his  finger 
and  held  it  up  to  catch  the  direction  of  the  breeze.  ' '  A 
fair  wind,"  he  said.  ''I  go  a-fishing.  Messiah  or  no 
Messiah,  a  man  must  eat  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of  his 
brow."  The  others  followed  him  down  to  the  boats. 
The  new  Rabbi  and  his  call  were  forgotten. 

And  then — and  then,  across  the  foreground,  a  figure 
passed.  A  man  in  a  loose  white  garment,  that  seemed 
only  to  accentuate  the  supple,  unseen  strength  of  his 
body;  a  man,  who  walked  with  head  thrown  back  and 
arms  extended,  as  if  drinking  in  the  glory  of  the  summer 
day,  as  if  his  heart  were  alive  and  in  tune  to  every  sound 
and  movement  of  life  in  the  world  around  him.  As  he 
reached  the  center  he  turned,  gazing  down  at  the  busy 
fishermen.  First  one  man  looked  up,  then  another. 
Then  came  Peter's  cry:  "Depart  from  me,  for  I  am 
a  sinful  man,  0  Lord."  But  the  figure  did  not  move. 
And  it  seemed  to  draw  the  hesitating  men  within  the 
circle  of  its  influence,  until  John,  his  hands  outstretched 
before  him,  broke  into  a  run,  and  fell  at  his  Master's 
feet. 

All  except  old  Zebedee.    He  stood  beside  his  boat,  un- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      303 

moved,  doubting,  querulous.  "We  have  toiled  all 
night,"  he  said.  "All  night.  And  have  caught  noth- 
ing." 

"CAST  OUT  INTO  THE  DEEP,  AND  YE  SHALL  FIND. 
OUT— INTO— THE— DEEP." 

It  was  the  first  time  that  Grace  Bowman  had  heard 
his  voice  at  its  full  power.  And  it  thrilled  her  so  that 
she  covered  her  face  with  her  hands,  fearing  lest  other- 
wise she  too  should  be  drawn  towards  him,  to  kneel  at 
his  feet,  to  hold  him  fast  and  not  to  let  him  go. 

All  through  the  rest  of  that  morning,  as  scene  fol- 
lowed scene,  fashioned  out  of  the  Gospel  story,  or  created 
by  the  free  imagination  of  a  poet-priest,  she  seldom  dared 
to  lift  her  eyes.  But  what  he  was  trying  to  say  and  to 
give  reached  her  with  every  word.  The  wonder  of  Life, 
its  glory ;  Life,  more  Life,  in  spite  of  its  apparent  cruelty 
and  pain,  because  pain  was  conquered,  or  nearly,  and 
sin  was  nothing  but  an  evil  dream. 

"I  AM  COME  THAT  THEY  MIGHT  HAVE  LIFE." 

In  the  pauses  between  the  scenes  she  seemed  to  hear 
his  voice  repeating  those  words  again  and  again — 

"THAT  THEY  MIGHT  HAVE  LIFE." 

Three  or  four  of  those  pictures  stood  out  preeminently 
in  her  memory  in  after  years.  The  rest  was  a  blur. 
The  tension  was  too  great. 

First,  there  was  that  scene  with  the  children. 

He  had  come,  with  his  disciples,  tired  from  a  long 
journey  and  at  the  end  of  his  strength.  He  and  his 
little  company  had  sat  down  to  rest  beneath  a  tree. 
Near  by,  children  were  playing.  The  ordinary  children 
of  Thiersee  in  their  everyday  clothes.  Some  were  play- 
ing at  marbles,  the  girls  at  a  sort  of  prisoner  's-base ;  and 
the  bigger  boys  were  spinning  tops.  The  weary  white 
figure  sat  there  in  silence,  leaning  against  the  tree,  watch- 
ing the  noisy  children. 

Gradually   their   voices   grew   less   shrill.    But   they 


304      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

played  on.  One  or  two  of  the  littlest  ones  stopped  and 
stood  in  a  row,  watching  the  tired  stranger.  Then 
others  came  and  joined  the  group.  He  drew  them 
towards  him.  They  could  not  stay  away.  Only  six  of 
the  bigger,  rougher  boys  kept  on  at  their  tops,  till  one 
of  them,  coming  up  to  him  with  the  loutish  rudeness  of 
youth  that  is  never  meant  to  be  rude,  demanded  "Ein 
Kreutzer  zum  Heraushacken. ' ' x 

The  stranger  smiled.  He  searched  vainly  in  his  own 
girdle.  Then  he  turned  to  Judas  with  out-stretched 
hand.  Slowly,  unwillingly,  Judas  gave  up  the  thin, 
common  purse  of  the  little  company.  He  said  some- 
thing in  an  angry  undertone,  and  glared  with  sullen 
enmity  at  the  silent  group.  For  the  older  boys  had  left 
their  tops  to  join  it  now. 

The  stranger  turned  away  from  Judas  towards  the 
children.  He  did  not  open  his  arms.  He  merely  in- 
dicated the  gesture. 

The  whole  group  of  silent  children  moved  a  step 
nearer. 

One  of  the  littlest  ones  tripped  and  fell.  He  put  out 
his  hand,  helped  the  child  up,  and  drew  it  within  his 
encircling  embrace. 

"SUFFER  LITTLE   CHILDREN  TO  COME  UNTO  ME.     FOR- 
BID THEM  NOT." 

His  voice  deepened  abruptly  to  a  low  resonant  note  of 
pain  and  almost  broke. 

"What  was  the  matter? 

During  the  last  few  moments  the  'cello  had  been  play- 
ing softly  a  melody  that  she  seemed  to  know.  As  the 
sound  of  his  voice  died  away,  she  recognized  it.  She 
could  see  John,  her  boy,  as  he  stood  beside  her  at  the 
piano,  for  the  first  time  that  he  was  old  enough  to  sing, 

i  In  Tyrol  it  is  the  custom  for  boys,  who  are  spinning  tops,  to 
ask  any  passing  stranger  for  "Ein  Kreutzer  zum  Heraushacken." 
The  copper  coin  is  put  into  a  circle  marked  on  the  ground,  and 
the  boy  who  can  hit  it  with  his  spinning-top  and  knock  it  out  of 
the  circle,  may  keep  it. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      305 

and  could  hear  his  uncertain  little  treble  quavering  out 
against  the  deeper  notes  of  his  father 's  baritone — 

"Jesus,  tender  Shepherd,  hear  me, 
Bless  Thy  little  lamb  to-night; 
Through  the  darkness   be  Thou  near   me, 
Keep  me  safe  till  morning  light." 

She  looked  at  the  stage  again.  The  children  had 
drawn  close  around  him.  He  was  telling  them  a  story. 
Above  their  heads  his  eyes  met  hers. 

She  broke  down  and  cried,  her  body  shaken  with  the 
sobs  that  she  could  not  control. 

"Mammy,  dear  mammy,  what's  the  matter?"  said 
little  John's  voice  at  her  shoulder. 

"Oh,  nobody  ought  to  have  to  suffer  so,"  she  sobbed. 
"It  isn't  fair." 

But  little  John  did  not  understand. 

"But,  mammy  dear,"  he  whispered — ''He  had  to  suf- 
fer, you  know.  It  says  so  in  the  Bible.  And  it  was  for 
us."' 

Yes,  that  was  true,  she  thought.  He  had  had  to  suf- 
fer. And  it  was  for  her — for  her  to  make  amends. 

' '  0  God, — God, ' '  she  prayed.  ' '  Let  me  help  him.  Let 
nothing  ever  come  between  me  and  that." 

Gradually  the  storm  of  weeping  passed.  It  left  her 
weak  and  trembling,  but  it  had  purged  the  tenement  of 
her  soul,  so  that  she  saw  clearer  and  further  than  ever 
in  her  life  before. 

When  she  began  to  follow  the  Play  again,  the  Passion 
had  begun.  Christ  was  in  Gethsemane.  At  his  feet  lay 
Peter  and  John.  Peter  was  fast  asleep ;  John  had  begun 
to  nod.  At  last  he  rested  his  head  on  the  Master's  knee 
and  slept  also.  Gently  the  Master  moved  away,  softly, 
slowly,  rolling  up  his  mantle  and  slipping  it  beneath 
the  weary  head  of  his  slumbering  disciple.  Alone  now, 
he  moved  to  the  back  of  the  stage,  towards  the  lake. 

Then  suddenly,  with  outstretched  arms,  he  fell  for- 
ward on  his  face.  A  man,  beaten  to  the  ground  by  some 
inner  bitterness  of  impending  struggle  and  possible  de- 


306      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

feat.  Only  his  hands  moved,  the  outstretched  hands, 
that  clutched  at  the  grass  with  nervous  twitching  fingers. 

But  slowly  a  change  came.  The  fingers  ceased  to 
twitch;  they  grew  strong  and  dug  themselves  into  the 
ground,  seeking  a  hold  there.  The  tension  ran  up  the 
nerveless  arms  till  all  the  muscles  quivered.  And  grad- 
ually, on  his  arms,  the  fallen  man  raised  himself.  Little 
by  little,  as  the  newly-born  impact  of  his  will  brought 
muscle  after  muscle  into  play,  he  rose,  and  stood  up- 
right. 

The  moment  of  weakness  was  past.  The  struggle  had 
been  fought  out,  as  all  great  spiritual  battles  must  be 
fought, — alone.  There  had  been  no  presences  of  minis- 
tering angels,  no  assurance  of  help  from  an  answering 
heaven ;  yet  this  man,  whom  Life  had  stricken  down  with 
his  face  to  the  ground,  alone  and  seemingly  at  the  end  of 
his  courage,  had  drawn  on  some  reserve  force,  some  secret 
spring,  hidden  and  perhaps  even  to  himself  unknown, 
that  had  given  him  new  strength.  And  Life — the  Life 
that  had  cast  him  down,  flowed  through  him  once  more. 
He  stood  upright,  to  look  Life  in  the  face. 

And  as  he  stood  there,  one  hand  on  his  hip,  the  other 
arm  thrown  slightly  back  as  if  challenging  some  last 
onslaught  of  an  unseen  enemy,  an  enemy  that  dne  felt 
was  slinking  defeated  away,  he  seemed  to  her  the  preg- 
nant expression  of  all  those  brave  souls  that  had,  in  their 
darkest  hour,  wrung  victory  from  themselves  in  the  very 
jaws  of  defeat:  the  unknown  conquerors  in  all  the  un- 
seen, unrecorded  struggles  of  the  soul  of  man  at  grips 
with  the  tyranny  of  material  things. 

His  back  was  towards  her.  Perhaps  in  this  simple 
expedient  lay  the  force  of  his  acting ;  for  when  one  saw 
his  face,  he  did  not  speak ;  when  one  heard  his  voice,  his 
face  was  hidden. 

And  so  he  neither  heard  nor  saw  the  approach  of  a  lit- 
tle band  of  soldiers.  Somehow  it  did  not  seem  incon- 
gruous that  they  were  all  dressed  in  the  uniform  of  the 
Austrian  infantry.  Nor  that  their  leader,  Longinus,  the 
centurion,  wore  the  stripes  of  a  corporal.  It  was  not  the 
representation  of  some  scene  that  had  taken  place  long 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      307 

ago  in  a  far-off  Jewish  land,  among  strange  people  and 
their  strange  habits  of  dress  and  speech,  all  dead  long 
since.  It  was  a  living  picture  of  something  real,  of 
something  that  could  never  die. 

The  little  group  of  soldiers  crept  on.  Then  their 
leader  pushed  a  man  forward.  The  man's  face  was  hid- 
den in  his  mantle.  With  an  unspoken  question  the  cen- 
turion pointed  to  the  sleeping  disciples.  The  muffled 
figure  shook  his  head.  And  then,  warily,  like  a  cat  step- 
ping high  across  the  grass,  the  Betrayer  came. 

He  stood  close  behind  the  Master.  And  one  knew, 
by  some  change  in  the  attitude  of  that  tense  body,  that 
it  had  recognized  the  nearness  of  a  friend.  It  turned 
quickly;  the  hands  shot  out  in  welcome.  They  flew  up 
to  the  new-comer's  shoulders,  drew  back  the  cloak  from 
his  muffled  eyes.  And,  at  the  sight  of  the  well-known 
face,  as  if  he  had  long  missed  it  from  his  company  and 
wondered  at  its  absence,  his  stern  lips  parted  in  a  smile. 

"FRIEND,  FRIEND," — the  word  was  like  a  caress, — 
"WHEREFORE  ART  THOU  COME?" 

'Judas  bent  down  and  lifted  his  Master's  hand  to  his 
lips. 

As  he  leaned  forward  the  glance  of  the  other  passed 
over  his  bowed  head  and  caught  sight  of  the  waiting 
group  of  soldiers,  straining  like  dogs  on  the  leash,  ready 
to  spring. 

He  saw;  he  understood.  For  an  instant  his  eyes 
blazed  as  if  he  were  about  to  summon  from  heaven  le- 
gions of  protecting  angels.  Then  his  glance  fell  again 
on  the  head  of  his  friend,  still  bowed  over  his  hand. 
Gently  he  drew  his  hands  away;  more  gently  still  he 
lifted  Judas'  face,  one  hand  beneath  his  chin,  until  it 
was  level  with  his  own.  And  he  looked  for  one  long 
moment  into  the  betrayer's  eyes,  as  if  he  saw  there  the 
beginnings  of  their  friendship,  their  hours  of  happy 
intercourse,  their  long  nights,  side  by  side,  sleeping  out 
under  the  stars  beside  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  Then  he 
spoke,  with  such  a  weight  of  sadness,  that  the  Prince- 


308      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

Bishop  put  his  hand  on  his  glittering  episcopal  cross  and 
strained  so  suddenly  on  its  golden  chain  that  two  of  the 
links  sprang  asunder. 

"JUDAS,   BETKAYEST  THOU— THE   SON   OF   MAN, 
—AND  WITH  A  KISS?" 

His  body,  a  moment  before  so  superbly  defiant  in  its 
supple  strength,  seemed  to  waver,  to  break.  The  soldiers 
dashed  forward,  as  if  the  fear  that  had  held  them  in 
leash  had  been  suddenly  lifted.  For  the  man  whom  they 
had  come  to  take  seemed  already  taken.  He,  who  had 
come  forth  victorious  from  the  battle  of  his  own  soul, 
was  broken  by  the  one  thing  he  could  neither  forgive 
nor  understand,  by  the  disloyalty  of  a  trusted  friend,  by 
the  betrayal  of  his  love. 

During  all  this  scene  her  eyes  had  never  left  him  for 
an  instant.  And  yet  she  never  knew  that  he  was  play- 
ing it  for  her ;  for  her,  the  friend  whom  he  had  trusted, 
and  who  had  come  spying  upon  the  most  secret  struggles 
of  his  being,  who  had  not  betrayed  him,  but  who  had 
let  him  betray  himself. 

And  now  Christ  was  being  dragged  before  Pilate. 
They  had  stripped  him  of  his  white  mantle.  His  hands 
were  bound  behind  him,  his  face  streaked  with  dust  and 
blood,  his  single  garment  torn.  Yet  he  stood  there  like 
a  god.  A  man  crushed  beneath  the  wheel  of  misfor- 
tune, who  will  not  yield.  And  Pilate  asked,  putting 
something  of  real  scorn  into  his  voice, — a  glorious  voice 
it  was  too,  smooth,  cultivated,  well  rounded  in  every 
tone,  like  the  voice  of  absolute  unquestioned  authority, — 

"ART  THOU  A  KING,  THEN?— THOU!— A  KING?" 

The  bound  prisoner  threw  up  his  head.  With  that 
one  gesture  he  seemed  to  shake  off  his  bonds,  his  weari- 
ness, his  pain  and  humiliation. 

"THOU  SAYEST  THAT  I  AM  A  KING.— TO  THIS  END  WAS 
I  BORN,  AND  FOR  THIS  CAME  I  INTO  THE  WORLD,— 
THAT  I  MIGHT  BEAR  WITNESS  TO  THE  TRUTH." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      309 

A  king!  In  spite  of  his  weakness,  with  everything 
against  him,  with  no  single  friend  to  stand  at  his  side; 
outcast,  but  a  king  still. 

And  she  saw  them  all,  those  kings  who,  in  the  face  of 
failure  and  disavowal,  had  still  borne  witness  to  the 
truth.  The  men  who  had  stood  up  boldly  in  the  face  of 
all  the  world,  and  whom  the  world  had  cast  out,  laughed 
at,  rolled  in  the  mire,  and  then  asked,  "Art  thou  a  king, 
then?"  And  always  had  come  the  same  answer — what 
matter  the  form  of  words?  what  matter  if  it  had  been 
spoken  by  Galileo  or  Giordino  Bruno,  by  Semmelweis, 
by  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  by  Strindberg  or  Nietzsche? — 
the  same  proud  answer,  ' '  Thou  sayest  that  I  am  a  king. ' ' 

This  scene  brought  her  peace.  She  knew  what  he  had 
meant  to  tell  her,  to  tell  everyone.  That  a  man  may  be 
bent,  never  broken ;  that  even  in  the  face  of  disaster,  dis- 
loyalty, and  death,  he  can  throw  back  his  head  and  pro- 
claim his  kingship  over  his  own  soul,  content,  in  spite 
of  his  loneliness  and  pain,  because  he  has  borne  his  wit- 
ness to  the  truth. 

The  other  parts  of  the  Passion  she  did  not  look  at. 
To  her  the  cross  was  a  felon's  death,  a  shameful  thing. 
She  could  not  think  of  him  in  connection  with  it  at  all. 
Even  when  the  curtain  parted  on  the  brief  scene  that 
showed  the  Crucifixion,  she  did  not  raise  her  eyes.  She 
had  been  once  at  Oberammergau  and  remembered  but 
too  well  how  this  very  scene  had  jarred,  because  the 
Christus  had  worn  pink  tights  with  very  visible  folds  and 
creases.  She  dreaded  something  of  the  kind  now.  She 
did  not  guess  that  Edwards  had  hidden  away  the  tights 
in  which  Joncke  had  played  the  Sunday  before. 

' '  Oh,  mammy,  do  look, ' '  said  little  John 's  voice. 

'There  were  the  three  crosses.  On  the  one  in  the  cen- 
ter hung  the  body  of — of  the  man  she  loved.  She  knew 
she  loved  him  now  beyond  all  power  to  say.  He  was 
naked  save  for  a  tattered  loin-cloth.  The  muscles  of 
arms,  legs,  and  neck  stood  out  like  whip-cords. 

She  understood  the  difficulty  of  holding  that  position ; 
for  his  only  support  was  the  iron  step  concealed  under 
his  right  foot  and  the  grip  of  his  fingers  on  the  nails. 


310      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

She  realized,  too,  that  therefore  the  scene  must  be  short. 
And  of  that  she  was  glad. 

About  the  cross  were  grouped  in  a  moving,  hurrying 
crowd  almost  all  the  actors  in  the  play.  The  soldiers, 
the  disciples,  the  Jews,  and  the  laughing,  shouting  crowd 
of  children;  the  same  noisy  crowd  that  had  gathered 
about  the  Christ  as  he  sat  tired  by  the  wayside.  They 
had  been  drawn  to  him  then  in  silence  and  love.  They 
were  drawn  to  him  now,  but  with  that  thoughtless  joy- 
ous cruelty  which  is  an  integral  part  of  youth.  The 
six  or  seven  rougher  older  boys  took  hands  and  danced 
around  the  cross,  singing,  jodling,  shouting. 

"Come  down,  if  you  can,  and  play  with  us. 
Come  down,  if  you  can.     Come  down." 

From  where  he  hung  his  eyes  were  watching  them. 
And  as  she  looked,  it  seemed  to  her  as  if  he,  high  up 
there,  had  a  new  vision,  a  new  insight  into  something 
that  had  long  troubled  him, — into  the  unconscious  cru- 
elty of  life.  From  the  ant  that  stings  its  prey  only  so 
that  its  muscles  may  be  paralyzed  and  yet  the  body  live 
on,  to  be  slowly  devoured  by  the  brood  of  its  tormentor ; 
from  the  terrors  of  the  mouse  in  the  cat 's  paw,  from  the 
wounded  deer  dragging  its  broken  foot,  seeking  shelter 
to  die  alone ;  to  the  heartlessness  of  man,  the  little  chil- 
dren sweating  in  tenements  or  factories,  women  forced 
to  sell  the  one  thing  that  is  above  price,  and  men  with 
strong  willing  arms  who  wander  about  looking  for  work 
and  finding  none.  Into  all  this  those  eyes  on  the  cross 
seemed  to  look,  as  they  gazed  down  into  the  faces  of  the 
dancing  children.  These  children,  who  knew  him  as  he 
really  was,  whom  he  had  nursed  in  sickness,  who  even  in 
this  play  of  make-believe  had  a  few  moments  ago 
crowded  around  his  knees  as  around  the  Good  Shepherd. 
And  now  they  were  shouting  taunts  at  him,  laughing, 
making  of  him  a  jest  because  he  was  helpless,  because 
they  knew  well  enough  that  he  could  not  ' '  come  down. ' ' 

But  they  did  not  mean  it.  Life  did  not  mean  it  either. 
That  was  the  secret  of  it  all.  Really  they  did  not  mean 
to  be  cruel, — to  hurt  him  so. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      311 

"FORGIVE  THEM,"  he  cried.  "THEY  KNOW  NOT  WHAT 
THEY  DO." 

The  other  words  were  quickly  spoken;  the  scene  had 
to  move  rapidly.  He  commended  his  mother  to  the 
disciple  who  stood  beneath  his  cross.  Then  the  thief 
spoke,  and  received  his  promise. 

"Mammy,"  said  little  John,  his  mouth  close  to  his 
mother's  ear,  "I  like  that  best  of  all.  He's  had  a  hard 
time,  that  poor  thief.  But  he'll  be  glad,  won't  he,  to  be 
in  Paradise, — with  him." 

During  the  long  morning  a  wind  had  risen.  And  as 
had  been  the  case  in  the  past  few  days,  masses  of  dark 
clouds  came  sailing  across  the  sky,  blotting  out  the  sun, 
and  as  suddenly  passing  away  again.  Now  for  the  last 
few  moments  there  had  been  little  light;  the  shadows 
were  deep  under  the  trees.  Night  seemed  coming  on. 

With  the  growing  darkness  there  came  a  pause  in  the 
scene  that  was  being  enacted  on  the  tiny  stage;  the 
anxious  pause  that  comes  when  something  has  gone 
wrong,  when  someone  has  forgotten  his  lines,  or  an  im- 
portant actor  fails  to  make  his  entrance  at  the  proper 
moment. 

St.  John  stepped  from  the  side  of  the  Blessed  Mother, 
whom  he  had  been  holding  in  his  arms.  His  eyes  were 
fixed  on  the  swaying  silent  man,  stretched  out  on  the 
cross.  Longinus,  too,  with  his  sponge  ready  on  the  reed, 
pressed  nearer. 

The  circle  of  dancing  children  stopped,  then  broke. 
The  crowd  of  Jews  and  soldiers  ceased  to  move. 

And  all  stared  up  at  the  figure,  high  above  their 
heads. 

Someone, — it  was  St.  John, — called  out — 

"Quick,— get  the  ladder.— Quick !" 

At  that  moment  the  clouds  passed  from  before  the  sun ; 
the  whole  scene  was  flooded  with  brilliant  dazzling  light. 

The  man  on  the  cross  raised  his  head.  The  eyes  stared 
straight  into  the  sun;  the  stiffened  muscles  seemed  to 
relax  in  the  warmth  of  its  rays  as  though  refreshed  and 
made  whole.  The  hands  loosened  their  grasp  on  the 


312      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

nails;  the  arms  strained  back  for  an  instant,  as  if  to 
welcome  the  stream  of  unending  life  that  bathed  and 
wrapped  him  round.  Then,  with  nothing  to  support  him 
except  the  hidden  iron  step  beneath  his  right  foot,  he 
stretched  out  both  his  arms  in  rapturous  salutation. 

"Mr  GOD!"  he  cried.    "MY  GOD " 

'And  then  he  pitched  forward  and  fell. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

EDWARDS  fell  into  Franzl's  outstretched  arms. 

A  few  seconds  later  he  opened  his  eyes. 

"Tell  the  people  not  to  go,"  he  whispered  to  Father 
Mathias,  who  was  bending  over  him.  "Say  I'll  be  able 
to  finish  it  if  they'll  wait  a  few  minutes.  There  are 
only  three  or  four  scenes  more.  Hurry.  Don't  worry 
about  me.  I'm  all  right." 

He  let  his  heavy  eyelids  close,  and  lay  back  against 
Franzl's  shoulder.  He  was  glad  to  feel  the  solid  earth 
beneath  him  again.  He  had  not  realized  what  it  meant 
to  hang  up  there,  so  far  above  people 's  heads,  even  for  a 
few  minutes.  He  had  begun  to  grow  giddy  almost  at 
once.  The  crowd  below  him  had  looked  so  strangely 
foreshortened.  And  then  the  children,' — they  had  made 
his  heart  ache.  He  had  felt  cold  after  that.  Life  and 
strength  seemed  to  be  ebbing  from  him.  And  he  had 
suddenly  had  that  dreaded  taste  in  his  mouth.  Then  the 
sun  had  come  out.  That  had  been  so  glorious.  A  great 
wave  of  warmth  and  vital  power  had  swept  over  him; 
he  had  seemed  to  see  into  the  very  heart  of  all  the  pul- 
sating life  of  the  world.  How  could  he  play  a  dying 
man  in  the  face  of  .that?  He  wanted  to  love, — to  live. 
Lucky  that  he  had  fallen. 

He  put  his  hand  to  his  lips.  Then,  holding  up  his 
fingers,  he  slowly  reopened  his  eyes. 

He  wiped  his  mouth  once  more  with  the  back  of  his 
hand. 

Where  was  the  blood?  Up  there,  on  the  cross,  it 
seemed  as  if  his  heart  had  burst  and  had  deluged  his 
body  with  it. 

"But  it  is  impossible.     He  must  not  go  on." 

He  heard  her  voice;  her  step.  Now  she  was  kneeling 
at  his  side. 

313 


314      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"Move  away,  please,"  she  said  to  Franzl.  "I'll  hold 
him." 

Edwards  clung  fast  to  Franzl's  arm.  He  knew  that 
if  she  once  took  Franzl's  place  he  was  lost.  In  spite  of 
her  deceit  and  all,  lost  irrevocably. 

"No,  no,"  he  said.  "Please  not.  I'm  quite  right 
again.  It  was  only  an  instant's  giddiness.  I've  never 
been  up  there  before,  you  know."  He  nodded  towards 
the  cross  that  some  of  the  players  had  begun  to  carry 
away.  "Franzl,  help  me." 

He  was  on  his  feet  now.  He  tossed  aside  the  mantle 
that  Franzl  had  thrown  about  his  naked  body,  and  be- 
gan to  test  his  joints  and  muscles. 

"I've  bruised  my  shoulder,"  he  said.  "Otherwise 
I'm  quite  fit." 

"What's  this?" 

Her  hand  shot  out,  caught  him  by  the  wrist,  and  she 
pointed  to  the  tell-tale  circles  of  inflamed  red  that  spread 
beneath  the  skin  of  his  upper  arm.  He  shrugged  his 
shoulders. 

"I  knew  you  were  keeping  something  back,"  she  said. 
"That  you  hadn't  told  me  all." 

Franzl  had  brought  him  his  white  under-tunic.  She 
started  forward  to  help  him  dress,  but  he  moved  away. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  I  told  you  about  enough,  Mrs. 
Bowman.  You  managed  it  very  well.  But  what  a  con- 
ceited ass  you  must  have  thought  me  that  afternoon  at 
Liebenegg ! ' '  His  drawn  face  flushed  to  the  eyes.  * '  You 
might  have  spared  me  that." 

"But  don't  you  understand?"  she  protested.  "I  was 
jealous  of — of  that  other  woman,  whose  letters  you  kept. 
And  then  I  found  that  I  had  been  jealous  of  my  own 
self." 

"It  must  have  made  you  smile." 

He  had  finished  dressing. 

"We'll  go  on  with  the  Play  now,  if  you  don't  mind. 
I  hope  it  has  interested  you." 

"Shall  I  see  you  afterwards?" 

"I  had  rather  you  didn't.  I  have  such  a  lot  to  do 
to-day." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      315 

"And  when  will  you  come  over  to  Liebenegg?" 

"When  I  can." 

"I'll  write.  I  couldn't  before.  Besides,  you  would 
have  recognized  my  handwriting." 

"And  then,  of  course,  I'd  have  stopped  telling  you 
things. — Really,  I'm  afraid  you'll  have  to  go  now." 

She  went  back  to  her  place  puzzled,  disappointed. 
He  knew  now  who  she  was.  That  was  evident.  But 
had  he  not  always  known?  She  had  supposed  that  he 
had  kept  up  the  fiction  of  "Miss  Sparks,"  partly  because 
it  amused  him,  and  partly  because  it  made  their  inter- 
course easier.  No  man  of  his  age  and  experience  could 
actually  have  been  deceived  for  so  long.  So  she  had 
thought  at  first.  Of  late,  however,  it  had  sometimes 
been  borne  in  upon  her  that  Edwards,  like  a  child,  might 
have  turned  a  fairy  tale  into  a  "real  true  story."  A 
hundred  times  she  had  been  on  the  point  of  setting  things 
straight,  and  had  been  glad  when  old  Professor  Schroe- 
der  told  her  that  he  had  unwittingly  saved  her  the 
trouble. 

What  was  the  matter,  then?  No  doubt  it  was  merely 
because  of  the  Play.  He  was  utterly  absorbed  in  his 
part ;  she  had  intruded  into  its  atmosphere,  and  he  had 
resented  it.  Then  she  remembered  the  little  red  circles 
on  his  arm,  and  a  chill  of  apprehension  ran  over 
her. 

"Did  he  hurt  himself,  mammy?"  asked  little  'John. 

She  put  her  arms  about  the  boy  and  pressed  him  close 
to  her. 

"Not  so  very  much.  But  he'll  go  on  hurting  himself 
a  great  deal  worse  if  somebody  doesn't  stop  him." 

"Couldn't  we  do  it,  mammy?    Let's  try." 

The  rest  of  the  play  did  not  interest  her.  To  her 
Edwards  was  the  Man ;  he  had  nothing  about  him  of  the 
Eisen  God.  Yet  in  the  last  scene  of  all,  on  the  shore  of 
Lake  Gennesaret,  she  found  the  Man  again. 

The  fishermen,  back  in  their  old  familiar  surround- 
ings by  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  saddened  by  the  tragedy  of 
Good  Friday,  and  not  yet  sure  of  the  Master's  resurrec- 


316      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

tion,  had  put  out  on  the  water  to  fish.     Now  they  were 
returning.     One  saw  the  three  boats  coming  slowly  in. 

Suddenly  on  the  shore  stood  a  white  mysterious  figure. 
Even  the  head  and  hands  were  hidden  in  the  thick  folds 
of  the  soft  white  mantle.  And  its  voice  called  out  across 
the  water — 

"CHILDREN,    HAVE    YE   ANY   MEAT?" 

Then  the  simple  scene  played  itself  out,  there  on  the 
lake  shore.  The  cry  from  John's  heart,  ''It  is  the 
Lord. ' '  And  the  gaunt  form  of  Peter  leaping  overboard 
and  rushing  through  the  shallows  to  fall  at  the  feet  of 
his  risen  Master. 

They  sat  about  the  little  fire  of  coals,  a  man  in  white, 
eating  with  his  friends.  Nothing  could  have  been 
simpler.  And  yet  a  wonderful  sense  of  peace  lay  over 
it  all.  A  sense  of  completeness  and  finality. 

At  last  the  meal  ended.  The  figure  in  white  lifted 
St.  John's  head  that  lay  upon  his  breast,  freed  himself 
slowly  from  the  disciple's  encircling  arms;  gave  his 
hand  to  Peter,  then  to  the  others.  They  dropped  on 
their  knees.  Only  John  followed  him  a  little  way,  as 
if  unable  to  let  him  go.  But  soon  he,  too,  stood  still. 

The  white  figure  moved  off  among  the  dim  silent  trees. 
It  seemed  as  if  it  had  already  vanished,  when  there  came 
a  quick  gleam  of  white  from  one  of  the  heaviest  shadows. 
And  then, — his  voice — 

"WORK,     WHILE      IT      IS     YET     DAY.     THE      NIGHT 

COMETH     WHEN     NO     MAN     CAN     WORK. THE 

NIGHT  COMETH. 

WORK." 

He  disappeared.  And  as  the  curtains  closed  the  little 
limping  Herald,  with  the  sun  shining  on  his  red  hair, 
stepped  forward,  holding  back  for  an  instant  the  falling 
folds — 

"Our  play  is  done,  we'd  thank  you  all, 
Before  these  parted  curtains  fall. 
May  He,  whose  form  you  here  have  seen 
Moving  across  our  stage  of  green, 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      317 

Be  with  you  ever,  till  at  last, 

When  sorrow's  done  and  death's  o'erpassed, 

We  see  His  glorious  face  again. 

And  so " 

He  slowly  signed  himself,  forehead  to  breast,  shoulder 
to  shoulder — 

" God  bless  us   all. — Amen." 

And  once  more  this  last  word  was  breathed  so  softly 
that  it  hovered  like  a  departing  swallow  in  the  summer 
air,  then  sank  into  silence. 

The  Play  was  over. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

EDWARDS  spent  most  of  that  night  packing. 

After  an  early  breakfast,  he  started  for  Kuf stein  with 
Joncke.  The  Biirgermeister  had  lent  them  his  wagon 
with  the  two  big  white  horses. 

Joncke 's  bag  and  his  own  had  been  tossed  in,  and  Toni, 
who  was  to  drive  them,  was  already  throning  it  proudly 
on  the  front  seat,  when  Edwards'  anxiety  to  be  gone 
was  suddenly  cooled  by  the  thought  that  he  was  behaving 
but  shabbily  to  his  best  friend. 

" Drive  round  by  the  lake,"  he  said  to  Toni.  "I  want 
to  stop  for  a  minute  at  the  '  Widum. '  ' 

At  the  gate  of  the  churchyard  Edwards  espied  Father 
Mathias  walking  up  and  down  while  he  made  his  Prepa- 
ration for  mass.  They  had  had  no  chance  to  talk  to- 
gether the  evening  before.  The  Prince-Bishop  had  been 
there;  he  had  stayed  at  the  "Widum"  overnight,  and 
Edwards  had  fled  from  what  he  knew  must  prove  a  try- 
ing interview.  But  the  parish  priest  had  been  so  kind : 
him  he  could  not  leave  without  a  word  of  farewell. 

He  jumped  out  of  the  wagon. 

"I've  only  a  moment,"  he  said,  as  Father  Mathias 
came  forward  to  meet  him.  "We  must  try  to  catch  the 
afternoon  train  for  Innsbruck.  I  was  going  to  write 
from  there;  but  it  didn't  seem  fair  to  go  like  that.  I 
shall  never  forget  you,  Father.  Good-by." 

"But  you'll  be  back  in  a  day  or  so, — then  we  can 
talk." 

"  I  'm  not  coming  back, ' '  Edwards  interrupted.  "  It 's 
no  use  trying  to  get  a  word  in  edgewise,  Hochwiirden, 
because  I  won't  let  you.  I Ve  got  to  drop  out.  It's  the 
only  way.  As  soon  as  I  have  a  permanent  address  to 
give,  I'll  ask  you  to  send  on  the  things  I've  left  behind. 
Where  to?  I  don't  know  yet.  I've  a  notion  to  try  Al- 

318 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      319 

bania.  They'll  be  needing  doctors — any  kind  of  doc- 
tors, I'm  thinking, — after  the  war.  Perhaps,  later,  I 
can  put  in  a  year  at  some  German  university  and  finish 
the  work  for  my  European  degree.  No,  really,  it's  the 
only  solution  possible.  I  can't  go  into  all  the  details. 
And  no,  I  will  not  let  you  say  anything.  But  you've 
guessed  how  things  stand  between  me  and — and  her. 
Or  rather,  you  haven't  guessed.  She  didn't  treat  me 
quite  fairly.  It  isn't  that,  though.  When  you  care  for 
anyone,  you  don't  mind  how  you  came  to  care.  But 
I'm  not  sound  physically,  and  I  won't  burden  a  fine 
creature  like  her  with  another  sick  man.  I  want  to 
bring  life  to  the  people  I  love;  not  disease — perhaps 
death. — No,  I  will  not  let  you  reason  with  me.  If  you 

like,  remember  me  at  mass  sometimes. — I'll  write 

Good-by." 

He  dashed  back  to  the  wagon,  jumped  in  beside  Joncke, 
who  sat  as  motionless  as  a  graven  image,  and  told  Toni 
to  drive  on. 

Father  Mathias  did  not  wait  to  watch  them  go.  He 
let  his  Breviary  fall  to  the  ground  and  toddled  into  the 
"Widum"  as  fast  as  his  short  fat  legs  would  carry  him. 
Ten  minutes  later  he  seized  forcibly  upon  Franzl,  as  the 
young  man  passed  the  church  gate  on  his  way  to  the 
fields. 

"Might  as  well  leave  that  pitchfork  here,"  he  said, 
"for  you'll  do  no  work  in  the  fields  this  day." 

Then  he  spoke  to  him  with  such  weight  of  authority, 
threatening  such  terrific  punishments  in  this  world  and 
the  next  if  Franzl  did  not  carry  out  his  instructions 
properly,  that  the  poor  lad  began  to  tremble  for  his 
eternal  salvation. 

"Take  thy  father's  other  horse,"  the  priest  said,  as 
Franzl  still  lingered.  "Don't  spare  it.  And  when  thou 
art  come  to  Liebenegg,  give  this  letter  into  her  hand, — 
and  into  no  one  else 's.  '  If  she  be  not  there,  ride  till  thou 
find  her.— Now,  be  off!" 

He  pushed  the  astonished  Franzl  through  the  gate. 
Then,  as  he  took  up  the  pitchfork  that  the  young 
man  had  dropped  and  hid  it  carefully  behind  the  door 


320      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

of  the  church,  he  muttered  to  himself  in  his  strange 
English — 

' '  Give  her  up,  will  he  ?  O  God ! — Sacrifice  himself  for 
an  idiotic  ideal,  indeed !  Oh,  damn  it  all,  no,  no,  no ! " 

And  he  went,  still  muttering,  in  to  mass. 

Meanwhile  Edwards  and  his  two  companions  were 
driving  slowly  up  the  hill  that  leads  through  the  village, 
past  the  schoolhouse,  and  so  out  of  the  valley  on  to  the 
Kufstein  road.  If  you  look  back  while  you  take  that 
steep  incline,  you  can  see  the  whole  of  Thiersee  gradu- 
ally spread  itself  out  below  you.  But  Edwards  stared 
straight  ahead.  He  felt,  rather  than  saw,  as  they  passed 
Kassian's  house,  where  the  glittering  pans  hung  out  in 
the  sun  and  the  tidy  boxes  of  flowers  and  herbs  on  the 
ledge  of  the  spotlessly  clean  windows  all  bore  witness  to 
Rosine's  careful  housewifery.  Then  came  the  school- 
house.  A  few  desolate-looking  children,  who  had  not 
heard  of  Joncke  's  illness,  were  hanging  about  the  garden. 
Frau  Speckbacher  came  out  and  sent  them  away. 
Higher  up  on  the  hill  was  the  carpenter's  shop. 
Strumpl-Jonas  was  at  work,  setting  out  a  new  pine  cof- 
fin smeared  with  fresh  pitch  to  dry  in  the  sun.  .Ed- 
wards returned  his  greeting  gravely.  Here  he  had  been 
measured  for  his  coffin :  his  name  must  be  there  still  on 
the  jamb  of  the  door. 

At  the  top  of  the  incline,  where  the  road  curves  in- 
wards, Toni  pulled  up  his  horses  for  a  rest.  But  Ed- 
wards urged  him  on;  for  here  stood  the  little  wayside 
shrine,  with  its  dusty  painting  of  the  Crucifixion  behind 
the  iron  bars.  Here  was  the  bench  where  Kassian  had 
slumbered  when  he  came  out  to  welcome  his  "Herr  Dok- 
tor"  to  Thiersee.  And  here  he  had  sat  with  her  on  that 
Sunday  noon  when  they  had  lunched  together,  and  she 
had  almost  slipped  to  her  death  down  the  hill.  There 
were  the  old  "Marteln," — the  battered  signboards  with 
their  quaint  rhymes  about  the  people  who  had  met  sud- 
den destruction  at  this  sharp  turn  of  the  road.  The 
summer  sun  was  streaming  over  it  all,  unchanged.  And 
he  was  leaving  it,  never  to  see  it  again. 

''Dear  me,"  he  said  aloud,  "what  a  lot  of  places  there 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      321 

are  getting  to  be  in  the  world  that  I  shall  never  see 
again !  But  the  earth  is  big ;  she  said  so.  And  a  man 
can't  live  forever." 

Down  the  road,  walking  very  slowly  and  wheezing 
like  a  steam-engine,  came  the  Gipfl-Marie.  When  she 
saw  Edwards  she  tried  to  hurry  past,  but  he  stopped  her. 

' '  You  ought  not  to  be  over-exerting  yourself  like  this, ' ' 
he  said.  "Where  have  you  been?  Out  with  it." 

She  had  been — had  been — only  the  Herr  Doktor  must 
not  be  angry, — to  the  house  of  the  Herr  Benefiziat  to 
get  a  new  cure  for  her  asthma.  He  was  so  old,  so  wise ; 
he  knew  so  many  good  herbs ;  and  her  breathing  had  been 
bad  again  since  the  Play  yesterday.  And  the  Herr  Dok- 
tor was  going  away ;  she  didn  't  know  for  how  long. 

"It's  a  comfort  to  feel  that  you'll  all  be  well  cared 
for  when  I'm  not  here,"  Edwards  said.  "But  what  are 
you  doing  on  the  top  of  this  hill  ? ' ' 

Oh,  that  was  part  of  the  medicine.  She  had  to  make 
a  pilgrimage  twice  a-day  for  a  month  to  this  shrine,  and 
say  two  Rosaries  each  time.  And  then  she  was  to  drink 
Lourdes  water,  mixed  with  some  kind  of  a  gum.  It 
was  a  good  gum;  it  came  from  the  pine-trees.  You 
melted  the  rest  of  it,  and  rubbed  it  into  your  throat 
while  you  said  the  "Salve  Eegina,"  two  Paters,  and 
seven  Aves. 

Edwards  left  her  at  the  shrine  utterly  absorbed  in 
her  devotions.  Her  breathing  seemed  worse  than  ever, 
but  apparently  she  did  not  notice  it. 

So  no  one  would  miss  him, — not  even  his  patients. 
The  old  quack — that  strange,  silent,  tottering  old  man — 
would  take  his  place.  The  people  would  flock  to  him,  as 
they  had  used  to  do,  and  perhaps  be  healed. 

But  one  last  disappointment  was  still  in  store  for  him. 

As  the  wagon  rounded  the  curve  where  the  road  runs 
along  the  open  pasture  with  its  solitary  tall  pine-tree — 
the  tree  where  he  had  first  met  Nani  and  Franzl — he  be- 
gan to  whistle  the  first  bars  of  the  song  they  had  so 
often  sung  together,  the  song  that  the  young  men  sing 
under  the  girls '  windows  on  their  way  home  from  the  inn 
on  Sunday  nights  in  summer. 


322      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

No  answer  came.  He  had  expected  none;  for  since 
Nani's  accident  another  girl  had  driven  the  cows  up 
here  to  graze.  The  cows  were  there  now,  placidly  nosing 
the  green  grass.  He  also  caught  sight  of  a  figure  in  a 
flowered  bodice  sitting  under  the  tree, — a  stranger  from 
one  of  the  neighboring  valleys,  who  did  not  even  know 
him  by  sight. 

As  they  drove  along  he  heard  a  crackling  in  the 
bushes,  and  out  of  the  wood  beyond  the  meadow  stepped 
a  young  man.  Not  Franzl,  but  one  of  the  infantrymen 
who  had  stood  beside  him  as  his  Roman  guard  in  yester- 
day's Play.  He  was  out  of  uniform  now  for  the  first 
time  for  months,  and  came  swinging  contentedly  across 
the  meadow-grass,  the  tight  leathern  breeches  and  cling- 
ing white  shirt  outlining  the  interplay  of  his  healthy 
muscles.  He  jodled  softly;  the  girl  beneath  the  tree 
stood  up  and  came  to  meet  him. 

He  slipped  one  arm  round  her  waist,  and  with  their 
heads  close  together  they  walked  back  to  the  shadow  of 
the  tree. 

Two  people  whom  Edwards  did  not  know,  in  the  old 
familiar  places,  composing  out  of  strange  units  the  old 
well-remembered  picture. 

That  was  life.  He,  the  individual,  came  and  went 
unnoticed.  But  this — this  mating  of  two  lives  that  new 
life  might  live, — this  was  there  always;  had  been  there 
before  the  Romans  came;  would  be  there  still,  when 
Austria  was  but  a  name  or  a  hazy  memory.  Into  the 
life  of  this  valley  he  had  come  for  a  time,  as  a  man  is 
born  into  the  world.  And  now  he  was  going  out  of  it 
again.  But  it  paid  no  heed ;  it  went  on  its  way  as  it  had 
always  gone,  as  it  would  ever  go. 

"Whip  up,  Toni,"  he  said.  "We  mustn't  dawdle 
along  too  slowly." 

Then  he  moved  closer  to  Joncke,  who  sat  at  his  side, 
tense  and  motionless. 

"How  are  you  feeling,  Emil?  Tell  me.  You  recog- 
nize me,  don't  you?  Do  you  know  where  you  are?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  answered  Joncke 's  voice  heavily.  "I 
know  quite  well.  This  is  the  Herr  Bin-germeister's 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      323 

wagon.  It  is  taking  me  to  Innsbruck.  And  you  are 
the  policeman.  Because  I  have  killed  my  friend.  He 
was  very  kind  to  me,  Charley  was.  But  not  quite  kind 
enough.  Once  he  left  me  alone.  So  I  killed  him.  And 
now — now  I  am  in  hell ! ' ' 

Toni  turned  a  terrified  white  face. 

' '  Herr  Doktor,  he  will  get  better  ?  You  will  make  him 
well  again,  won't  you?" 

Edwards  laughed. 

"Am  I  God?"  he  said.  "To  kill  and  make  alive? 
To  lift  up  whom  I  will,  and  cast  down  whom  I  choose  ? ' ' 

Toni  was  more  frightened  than  ever.  A  single  tear 
trickled  down  his  freckled  nose. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

INSTEAD  of  pushing  on  immediately  to  Innsbruck,  Ed- 
wards spent  the  night  at  Kufstein.  For  Joncke,  like 
most  similar  cases,  grew  worse  late  in  the  day,  and  it 
seemed  safer  to  travel  with  him  in  the  earlier,  quieter 
hours  of  the  morning.  So  they  sent  Toni  back  with  the 
wagon.  Saying  good-by  to  this  red-headed  child,  who 
still  limped  a  little,  and  who,  as  the  custom  was,  bent 
down  to  kiss  Edwards'  hand  in  the  midst  of  the  village 
street,  was  for  Edwards  the  hardest  task  of  all.  Yet  as 
he  watched  Toni  drive  off,  back  towards  the  valley  he 
was  never  to  see  again,  he  felt  as  if  the  last  link  had 
snapped,  and  was  conscious  of  a  sense  of  peace. 

He  avoided  the  ' '  Golden  Swan. ' '  The  hotel  reminded 
him  too  strongly  of  his  first  night  in  Kufstein,  so  many 
months  ago.  He  preferred  to  take  Joncke  to  a  tiny,  very 
dirty  hostelry  in  a  side  street,  where  he  was  kept  awake 
all  night  by  some  carousing  students  in  a  restaurant 
across  the  way,  who  only  knew  one  drinking-song,  "Im 
tiefen  Keller  sitz'  ich  hier,"  and  who  sang  it,  with  brief 
intermissions  for  fresh  beer,  until  day  broke  and  they 
wandered,  still  singing,  home. 

At  breakfast  'Joncke  announced  that  he  was  unworthy 
to  touch  food.  There  was  nothing  to  be  done.  Ed- 
wards knew  that  he  must  hurry  him  to  the  Clinic,  where 
he  could  be  artificially  fed. 

They  left  Kufstein  very  early  in  the  morning,  so  that 
it  was  only  nine  o'clock  when  the  train  puffed  over  the 
long  viaduct  into  Innsbruck.  Edwards  stood  at  the  win- 
dow, watching  for  familiar  landmarks:  the  glistening 
windows  of  the  Hungerburg,  high  over  the  city;  the  old 
round  building  where  strangers  were  induced  to  pay  a 
crown  for  the  sight  of  a  circular  panorama  of  Andreas 

324 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      325 

Hofer  and  the  fight  on  Berg  Isel;  Saggen,  the  fashion- 
able villa  quarter;  the  dreary  disused  exhibition  hall; 
the  ugly  twin  towers  of  the  University  church,  where 
no  student  of  the  University  ever  set  foot;  and,  in  the 
misty  distance  above  the  roofs,  the  tall  brick  chimney 
that  marked  the  site  of  the  General  Hospital. 

Edwards  felt  quite  excited.  After  all,  he  had  lived 
in  this  place  for  three  years,  and  had  been  away  from 
it  these  many  months.  It  was  almost  like  coming  home. 

Joncke  followed  him  obediently  out  of  the  station. 
The  jovial  red-cheeked  concierge  of  the  Tyrolerhof 
touched  his  cap,  and  Edwards  stopped  for  a  moment  to 
ask  about  one  of  his  children,  whose  case  had  interested 
him  in  the  Clinic  the  winter  before.  It  was  pleasant  to 
be  remembered. 

"It's  because  I  grew  up  in  a  small  provincial  city, 
I  suppose,"  Edwards  said,  although  Joncke  paid  no 
heed.  ' '  I  like  to  have  people  know  me,  and  speak  to  me 
on  the  street.  It  warms  me  inside." 

He  put  Joncke  into  one  of  the  old  rickety  cabs,  an  un- 
precedented luxury  for  them  both,  and  drove  off  through 
the  familiar  streets.  It  was  mid-summer.  The  place 
was  packed  with  tourists  of  all  kinds.  From  sedate 
English  spinsters  with  blue  veils  drawn  taut  across  their 
thin  red  noses,  to  whole  families  of  northern  Germans — 
papa  in  a  Jaeger  vest  and  rubber  collar,  mamma  with 
the  " rucksack,"  her  gray  skirts  held  high  with  four 
large  shining  safety-pins,  and,  straggling  along  behind, 
their  children,  the  girls  with  tightly-tied  yellow  pig- 
tails, the  boy  very  scrawny  in  the  leg,  very  bulgy  as 
to  the  forehead,  with  a  green  tin  box  for  natural  history 
specimens  slung  over  his  narrow  chest.  They  were  all 
there, — all  the  types  that  Edwards  knew  so  well.  And 
the  city — his  city — was  given  over  to  them  wholly.  The 
native  population  had  fled.  He  saw  very  few  faces  that 
he  recognized. 

But  at  the  gate  of  the  hospital  he  was  among  his  own 
people  again.  As  the  wagon  passed  through,  the  old 
Bohemian  porter  waddled  out  of  his  lodge,  as  his  duty 
was,  his  hands  clasped  across  his  mighty  stomach. 


326      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"Jesses-Maria-und-Josepf !"  he  grunted.  "The  Herr 
Mister!" 

Edwards  told  the  driver  to  wait.  It  would  not  take 
long  to  put  Joncke  in  proper  care.  Then  he  would  drive 
back  to  the  station,  where  he  had  left  his  luggage,  and 
take  a  ticket  to — to 

Exactly  where,  he  had  not  yet  decided.  Later  on,  he 
could  write  to  the  Innsbruck  Kredit-Anstalt  for  letters 
and  money ;  he  knew  that  his  small  quarterly  draft  from 
America  must  be  due  soon.  He  would  go  south,  into 
Italy,  on  foot.  That  would  be  cheap.  He  would  be  far 
from  the  railway,  and  people  could  not  reach  him.  In 
a  month  or  two  he  would  be  forgotten. 

The  Psychiatric  Clinic  is  the  last  of  the  pavilions  at 
the  very  bottom  of  the  hospital  garden.  To  reach  it, 
one  must  pass  the  walls  of  the  Surgical  Division;  and 
there  is  a  break  in  this  wall,  shut  off  by  a  high  wire 
fence;  a  break  between  two  wings,  that  gives  on  a  little 
inner  playground,  where  the  "surgical  children,"  who 
are  convalescing,  sit  in  the  sun. 

Edwards  took  Joncke 's  arm  and  started  through  the 
garden. 

There  were  not  many  patients  about,  only  a  bent  old 
woman  or  two  in  the  hideous  hospital  uniform  of  dirty 
red  and  white  stripes.  But  clinging  to  the  inner  side 
of  the  wire  fence  that  spanned  the  gap  between  the  two 
surgical  wings,  was  a  small,  very  thin  boy,  with  immense 
black  eyes.  And  his  eyes,  though  sunken  in  circles  of 
blue,  were  keen. 

He  gave  a  single  whoop  of  delight,  in  a  shrill  uncer- 
tain treble.  And  as  Edwards  passed  a  blue-veined  hand 
shot  out  through  a  gap  in  the  wire  fence  and  caught  him 
by  the  sleeve. 

"Herr  Mister!"  piped  the  shrill  voice.  The  hand 
held  fast  to  Edwards'  arm,  and  the  same  voice  called 
excitedly,  "Quick — come  quick.  It's  our  Herr  Mister. 
He's  come  back  at  last." 

The  other  children  came  tumbling,  tripping,  limping 
across  the  grass,  a  mass  of  red-and-white  striped  little 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      327 

figures.  Hands  were  stretched  through  the  iron  fence. 
Questions  were  shouted  all  at  once. 

"Herr  Mister,  I'm  much  better." 

"Herr  Mister,  I've  got  them  yet,  the  tin  soldiers." 

''My  leg's  mended,  Herr  Mister.  I'm  going  home 
next  week." 

' '  Herr  Mister,  when  are  you  coming  again  ? ' ' 

"When,   Herr  Mister— when ?" 

Then,  above  the  crowded  heads,  appeared  the  white 
flapping  wings  of  a  nun's  habit.  Beneath  it  was  the 
face  of  Sister  Angelica,  a  thin  mite  of  a  woman  with 
tired  eyes.  She  was  excited, — angry. 

"Shame,  children,  shame!  You  know  the  Herr  Pro- 
fessor has  forbidden  you  to  annoy  passers-by." 

A  smile  slowly  softened  the  sharp  angles  of  her  face. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  Herr  Mister.  I  might  have  known  it. 
Are  you  coming  back  to  us  soon?" 

She  pushed  the  children  away,  but  the  little  lad  with 
the  big  black  eyes  clung  tenaciously  to  the  wire  fence 
with  both  hands. 

' '  You  remember  him,  don 't  you  ? ' '  the  sister  went  on. 
"The  factory  boy  that  got  crushed  under  a  falling 
weight.  You  must  remember  when  he  was  in  the  exten- 
sion bandages,  with  the  weights  at  his  head  and  feet, 
and  you  came  in  and  sat  by  him  and  set  up  tin  soldiers 
on  his  chest.  He  is  to  be  sent  home  soon.  We  can't 
keep  him  here.  And  he's  as  well  as  he'll  ever  be." 

She  lowered  her  voice. 

' '  But  he  has  been  in  terror  lest  he  should  be  discharged 
before  you  came  back.  You  know,  we  expected  you  in 
May,  when  the  summer  semester  began.  Ever  since  he 
has  waited  and  waited.  Each  morning,  as  soon  as  he 
was  out  of  bed,  he'd  come  to  this  fence,  where  he  could 
see  the  medical  students  pass  by.  The  Herr  Professor 
has  forbidden  it;  but  he  slipped  off  whenever  I  wasn't 
looking. ' ' 

' '  And  he  has  been  waiting  all  these  weeks  for  me  ? " 

The  sister  nodded,  her  linen  head-dress  flapping 
against  the  fence. 


328      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"If  you  could  spare  him  a  few  minutes,  this  morning 
perhaps,  he'd  sleep  soundly  to-night.  Now  that  he  has 
seen  you,  there  will  be  no  holding  him  until  he  has  had 
a  chance  to  tell  you  a  thousand-and-one  unimportant 
things." 

She  bobbed  a  clumsy  little  curtsey  and  moved  off. 

But  the  boy  still  clung  to  the  wire  fence.  He  plucked 
Edwards  again  by  the  sleeve. 

"I  say,"  he  whispered,  "I  am  glad.  I'll  get  better 
now. ' ' 

And  as  Edwards  turned  away,  the  big  black  eyes  fol- 
lowed him. 

In  the  Psychiatric  Clinic,  Edwards  went  at  once  to 
the  "Duty  Boom,"  where  he  knew  he  should  find  one  of 
the  assistants.  A  slight  young  man,  with  a  black  fuzzy 
beard,  jumped  up  from  the  table  where  he  was  writing 
case  notes. 

"You,  Herr  Mister !  Come  in — come  in.  What  luck ! 
You  didn't  expect  to  find  me  here,  I  suppose.  I  didn't 
expect  it  myself.  But  the  post  was  vacant.  And  I 
hadn't  the  heart  to  go — to  go  home.  Not  this  summer. 
My  father — I  told  you  about  it,  I  think." 

Edwards  held  out  his  hand.  He  had  caught  sight  of 
the  black  trousers  below  the  hem  of  the  white  duck  tunic. 
So  here  was  another  man  who  had  once  been  overjoyed 
at  the  thought  of  going  home;  and  now  the  joy  was 
taken  from  him  too.  But  he  said  nothing ;  words  of  con- 
dolence came  hard  to  him  always. 

"Thanks,"  the  little  Freiherr  von  Atems  went  on. 
"It  is  rather  hard  just  at  first.  And  this  isn't  the  sort 
of  duty  I  like,  you  know.  Tuberculosis  is  what  fas- 
cinates me.  Well,  a  man  has  got  to  do  some  sort  of 
work  or  go  mad.  By  the  way,  are  you  going  back  to 
active  service  yourself  in  the  Surgical?" 

Edwards  shook  his  head.  He  thought  of  Joncke  wait- 
ing on  the  patients'  bench  outside  the  door.  Neverthe- 
less he  let  his  friend  talk  on.  It  was  pleasant  to  hear 
him.  The  old  loved  atmosphere  of  the  place  gathered 
about  Edwards  as  he  listened. 

"But  you  will  go,  of  course,  eventually.     Old  Schroe- 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      329 

der  has  been  singing  your  praises.  It  seems  you  've  been 
doing  surgical  wonders  out  there  in  that  god-forsaken 
place,  where  I  met  you  a  few  days  ago.  He  says  you  are 
built  for  a  surgeon,  anaesthetic  hands  and  all  that." 

Edwards  hazarded  a  question. 

"Is  he  operating  then,  the  Herr  Professor?  I  thought 
that— that ." 

"So  did  everyone  else.  But  last  Saturday  he  turned 
up  suddenly  at  the  Clinic.  There  happened  to  be  sev- 
eral bad  cases  lying  there, — hopeless  ones  almost.  But 
he  rolled  up  his  sleeves  and  got  to  work.  Of  those  four, 
he  pulled  three  through.  And  since  then  he  has  been  at 
it  day  and  night,  spending  long  hours  in  the  wards,  look- 
ing into  all  kinds  of  petty  details  that  he  used  to  leave 
to  the  staff.  It's  as  if  he  had  a  sort  of  grudge  against 
death  and  wanted  to  get  even." 

Von  Atems  paused  for  an  instant.  Then  he  added  in 
a  lower  tone — 

"He'd  have  gone  utterly  smash  if  he  hadn't  started 
to  work.  And  I'm  looking  to  work  to  help  me.  That's 
where  we  doctors  have  our  hold  on  life.  People  fall 
ill,  and  they  have  to  be  helped.  They  have  to  be.  And 
the  losses  and  troubles  that  happen  to  ourselves  get 
pushed  into  the  background.  They  seem  so  little.  The 
fight  with  disease  and  death  is  too  exciting  to  leave  time 
for  anything  less  important.  "When  a  soldier's  on  the 
firing  line  he  doesn't  worry  because  his  collar  has  come 

unbuttoned. But  you've  something  to  tell  me.  Let's 

hear." 

Edwards  sketched  Joncke's  case  as  concisely  as  he 
could.  Then  he  brought  the  schoolmaster  into  the  room. 

"We'll  take  care  of  him,  never  fear,"  said  Von  Atems. 
"Speaking  for  myself,  it  doesn't  look  like  a  'dementia 
praecox'  to  me.  He'll  probably  get  over  it.  It  may 
come  on  again  when  he's  an  old  man.  But  until  then 
he  ought  to  have  long,  long  years  of  good  use  out  of  his 
think  machine. ' ' 

"Then  I'm  off." 

He  came  up  to  Joncke  and  held  out  his  hand.  Uoncke 
shook  his  head. 


330      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"I  am  not  worthy  to  take  anyone's  hand,"  he  said  in 
his  toneless  even  voice.  "Have  you  told  the  Herr  Dok- 
tor  here  how  I  murdered  the  only  man  who  was  ever 
really  kind  to  me?  'You  go  to  sleep,  Emil,'  he  said, 
'and  when  you  wake  up  I'll  he  here.  I'll  be  here  al- 
ways.' That's  what  he  said.  And  then  one  day  he 
wasn't  there.  Perhaps  he  didn't  know  how  much  I 
needed  him.  But  I  couldn't  go  on  like  that, — falling 
asleep  and  expecting  to  see  him  when  I  woke,  and  then 
waking  to  find  him  gone:  so  I  killed  him.  Strumpl- 
Jonas  made  the  coffin.  We  saw  it  drying  yesterday  in 
the  sun." 

Von  Atems  rang  for  a  nursing  sister  and  put  Joncke 
in  her  care.  Then,  as  he  shook  hands  with  Edwards  at 
the  door  of  the  Clinic,  he  said — 

"I  hope  you  aren't  leaving  town  just  yet.  You  must 
be  within  call  when  this  patient  of  yours  starts  to  get 
better.  Once  he  recognizes  you,  his  fixed  idea  of  having 
murdered  his  friend  will  seem  to  him  what  it  really  is, 
a  sickness — something  to  be  overcome.  And  that  will 
be  the  beginning  of  his  recovery. ' ' 

"But  if  I'm  not  here " 

"You  must  let  me  have  your  address.  It  may  be  of 
the  most  vital  importance." 

Edwards  hurried  away.  He  wished  now  that  he  had 
never  come  to  Innsbruck.  On  every  side  it  seemed  as 
if  people  were  deliberately  binding  him  with  cords,  so 
that  he  could  not  get  away.  And  he  must  go — he  must, 
while  yet  his  will  held  firm. 

Joncke  would  get  better  without  him.  He  could  not 
think  of  others  now.  His  driver  was  waiting  for  him 
at  the  outer  gate  and  he  had  no  money  to  waste  on  cabs. 
But  as  he  hastened  along  towards  the  porter's  lodge  he 
caught  sight  of  the  wire  fence  between  the  two  wings 
of  the  Surgical  Pavilion. 

That  child  with  the  big  black  eyes! 

What  would  happen  if  he,  whom  the  child  had 
waited  for,  never  came?  The  boy  would  be  unhappy 
for  a  day  or  so,  but  that  would  pass.  Children  forget  so 
easily. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      331 

He  told  himself  this  a  hundred  times.  And  yet,  be- 
fore he  realized  it,  he  had  turned  to  his  right  and  was 
climbing  the  steps  that  led  into  the  surgical  wards. 

Once  inside  the  outer  door,  the  clean  familiar  smells 
were  like  incense  in  his  nostrils.  On  the  left  lay  the 
waiting-room  for  the  out-patients.  He  heard  a  door  open 
and  a  doctor's  voice  call  out,  "Who's  next? — No,  not 
you,  you  big  hulking  lout !  Aren  't  you  ashamed  to  push 
in  front  of  an  old  woman  ? ' ' 

Down  the  long  flagged  corridor  he  went.  On  this 
corridor  were  the  small  private  rooms,  reserved  for  mem- 
bers of  the  staff.  In  one  of  them,  in  the  room  belonging 
to  the  ' '  Herr  Dozent, ' '  who  was  First  Assistant  now  and 
second  in  command  after  Professor  Schroeder,  Edwards 
had  been  accustomed  to  leave  his  coat  when  he  exchanged 
it  for  the  white  duck  tunic  of  active  clinical  service,  a 
courtesy  allowed  him  as  an  older  student,  and  because 
the  Herr  Dozent  had  been  especially  kind  to  him  always. 

He  stopped  outside  the  door.  Was  his  white  tunic 
still  hanging  there,  he  wondered.  He  remembered  that 
Sister  Angelica,  the  little  sister  in  the  children's  ward, 
had  made  him  two  tunics  with  his  name  stitched  in  red 
thread  under  the  collar.  And  if  he  were  going  into  the 
Children's  Pavilion  he  could  not  make  his  visit  there 
in  these  dusty  travel-stained  clothes.  That  would  never 
do. 

He  knocked.  No  one  answered.  Evidently  the  Herr 
Dozent  was  on  duty  somewhere.  He  turned  the  handle. 

Yes,  there  was  his  tunic,  hanging  up  in  its  old  place, 
freshly  washed,  more  spotlessly  white  than  ever. 

In  an  instant  he  had  slipped  out  of  his  coat,  had 
turned  up  his  cuffs,  and  was  thrusting  one  arm  into  the 
soft  white  sleeve,  when  the  door  opened  quickly  and  the 
Herr  Dozent  came  in. 

Edwards  began  to  explain. 

But  the  other  cut  him  short  decisively  in  the  kind, 
very  quiet  voice  that  Edwards  knew  so  well, — a  voice 
that  was  never  raised  in  excitement  even  during  the 
most  complicated  operation,  when  everything  was  going 
wrong  and  the  chief  was  bellowing  like  a  wounded  steer, 


332      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

— a  voice  that  instantly  restored  confidence  even  to  the 
most  nervous  beginner  sweating  over  his  first  hernia. 
And  as  the  voice  was,  so  was  the  man — tall,  spare,  with 
clean-shaven  jaw  and  steel-blue  eyes:  a  body  absolutely 
under  the  control  of  an  all-directing  will.  Not  only  a 
\  great  surgeon,  but  one  of  the  best  outdoor  athletes  in 
>  Austria,  and  withal  a  most  kindly,  courteous  gentleman, 
— as  courteous  to  the  most  wretched  woman  from  the 
slums  as  to  the  highest  privy  councilor  who  was  having 
his  appendix  removed  in  a  moment  of  over-powering 
terror  after  eating  too  much  salmon. 

With  Baron  von  Saar — his  family  was  of  the  old  Salz- 
burg nobility — there  was  never  any  need  for  explanation 
or  for  the  embarrassment  that  precedes  it.  He  under- 
stood without  explanations. 

So  Edwards  felt  now.  He  was  at  his  ease  in  an  in- 
stant. 

"Reporting  again  for  duty,  Herr  Kollega?"  said  the 
Herr  Dozent,  stepping  quickly  to  his  desk  for  a  letter 
that  he  had  apparently  forgotten.  ' '  That 's  right.  Glad 
to  see  you  always.  There  are  three  interesting  cases  in 
the  theater.  The  chief  is  doing  them  all.  Better  have 
a  look  in." 

He  started  off  again  towards  the  door.  Edwards  knew 
that  every  instant  of  this  man's  time  was  completely 
filled  by  his  never  hurrying,  never  resting  activity.  Yet 
a  thought  had  suddenly  risen  from  his  subconsciousness. 
It  dominated  him.  Here  was  someone  whom  he  could 
trust — a  man  who  himself  was  sure. 

"Herr  Dozent,  I  know  you're  frightfully  busy;  but 
I — I'm  in  trouble,  and  I — I " 

Von  Saar  closed  the  door  softly.  The  atmosphere 
of  intense  activity  that  surrounded  him  ceased  to  make 
itself  felt.  He  had  put  it  aside.  And  his  will,  all  his 
attention,  was  bent  on  the  task  before  him, — the  task 
of  listening  to  someone  who  had  asked  for  help. 

In  a  few  minutes  Edwards  had  told  him  all  that  was 
necessary. 

"Strip,  please." 

Half  an  hour  later  Edwards  was  retying  his  cravat 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      333 

and  listening  to  the  Herr  Dozent,  who  was  tapping  the 
table  with  the  rim  of  his  stethoscope. 

"If  everyone  who  had  had  or  who  still  possessed  a 
few  of  old  Koch 's  bacilli  in  his  organism,  should  sit  down 
and  propose  to  die  of  'T-B-C.,'  we'd  have  to  stop  dig- 
ging- graves  and  bury  the  people  by  cartfuls;  and  spit- 
ting a  little  blood  need  not  mean  that  you've  only  one 
lung.  As  a  matter  of  fact  you've  two.  There  is  one 
tiny  spot  that  sounds  suspicious;  but  you  mustn't  im- 
agine yourself  a  martyr  and  think  you  acquired  it  in 
that  precious  valley  of  yours.  Why,  you've  only  been 
there  four  or  five  months.  No,  no.  Whatever  assorted 
lots  of  Koch's  animals  you've  got,  you've  had  for  some 
time.  I  daresay,  from  one  of  the  cases  here.  And  your 
heart's  all  right.  Nothing  wrong  about  it  organically, 
only  you're  too  infernally  nervous.  Take  care  of  your- 
self, don't  worry,  get  proper  food,  and  above  all,  live  in 
the  sun, — with  your  clothes  off,  if  possible. — I've  just 
been  up  to  Lysin  to  see  Rollier's  new  'T-B-C.'  sana- 
taria.  And  I  tell  you,  if  the  sun  keeps  on  shining,  as 
I  suppose  it  will,  people  will  soon  be  able  to  worry  along 
without  so  many  of  us  surgeons.  Besides,  when  a  medi- 
cal man  gets  a  disease  you  can  be  pretty  sure  he  has  only 
got  the  symptoms, — out  of  his  books." 

"But  my  work " 

"You'll  find  work  right  enough.  I  daresay  there  are 
the  makings  of  a  surgeon  in  you.  You're  too  much 
on  edge  ever  to  be  an  operator  after  my  own  heart.  But 
then,  it  isn't  only  the  absolutely  steady  hand  that  takes 
the  surest  stitches.  See  you  in  the  theater,  I  suppose." 

"Thanks.  I  am  rather  upset  this  morning.  All  sorts 
of  coincidences  have  bothered  me.  It  seems  as  if  the 
universe  had  stopped  still  in  order  to  make  me  do  what 
I  have  decided  not  to. ' ' 

The  Herr  Dozent  opened  the  door.  His  habitual  look 
of  quiet  intense  activity  had  come  over  him  again. 

"Better  let  the  universe  have  its  way,  unless  there's 
a  woman  mixed  up  in  it — then  let  her  have  hers.  She  '11 
turn  out  to  be  the  universe,  or  make  you  think  so,  which 
amounts  to  the  same  thing.  Auf  Wiedersehen.  No, 


334      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

please  don't  thank  me.     I'm  only  too  glad  to  be  of  use. 
What  else  are  we  here  for?" 

Edwards  slipped  into  his  tunic. 

He  had  started  on  his  way  to  the  children's  ward, 
when  he  met  Sister  Angelica  carrying  a  tray  laden  down 
with  steaming  cups  of  soup. 

"They'll  be  eating  now,"  she  said. 

"Then  I'll  come  later.  What  do  you  suppose  that 
child  wants  of  me?" 

Sister  Angelica  smiled  at  him  across  the  mist  that  rose 
from  her  heavy  tray. 

"Nothing,  I  'spect,"  she  answered,  "except  to  see  you. 
Children  are  like  that.  Women  too." 

And  she  staggered  off  under  her  burden. 

Edwards  turned  back  and  went  into  the  operating 
theater  that  served  also  as  a  lecture-room  during  term- 
time;  but  the  summer  semester  was  over  long  since. 
Now  rows  of  empty  benches  encircled  a  free  space  in  the 
center.  To  these  benches  there  was  an  entrance  at  the 
back.  Edwards  came  in  by  this  door.  Then  he  walked 
down  to  the  front  bench  that  stood  on  the  very  border 
of  the  free  circular  space,  and  sat  down. 

Professor  Schroeder  was  just  finishing  an  operation. 
He  nodded  to  Edwards.  The  assistant  began  to  sew  up 
the  wound ;  the  Professor  took  off  his  rubber  gloves  and 
plunged  his  hands  into  hot  water. 

Edwards  marveled  at  the  change  in  him.  He  was 
no  longer  the  broken  trembling  old  man  whom  he  had 
met  on  the  road  to  Liebenegg  a  week  ago.  The  lines  in 
his  face  had  deepened  here  and  there,  but  he  was  him' 
self  again. 

"Next  case,"  he  called. 

An  operating-table,  with  the  patient  lying  bound  on 
it,  was  rushed  into  the  theater.  After  it  a  smaller  table 
with  fresh  instruments.  Then  there  came  a  pause.  The 
Professor  began  to  fume. 

"Who's  anaesthetising ?  Dr.  Stanning?  Well,  where 
is  he?  Smoking  a  cigarette  in  the  hall,  I  suppose. 
Clever  fingers,  but  a  thoughtless  head.  I  can 't  wait  for 
him.  I've  another  Gastroenterostomia  after  this  one." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      335 

He  turned  to  Edwards. 

"Herr  Kollega,  come  along,  do,  and  take  this  case  for 
me." 

Edwards  came  down  into  the  theater.  The  patient, 
an  emaciated  woman,  was  lying  bound  to  the  table,  her 
body  rigid,  her  eyes  shining  with  terror.  Edwards 
picked  up  the  chloroform  mask.  As'he  bent  over  the 
woman's  head  from  behind  her  to  examine  her  mouth 
and  throat,  she  looked  up  at  him,  and  the  terror  went 
out  of  her  eyes  like  a  snuffed-out  candle. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  Herr  Mister,"  she  said.  "You  must 
remember  me,  Frau  Dobler,  and  my  little  girl  who  had 
the  appendicitis.  There's  a  some 'at  wrong  in  my  in- 
sides  too.  But  I've  been  that  afraid  of  being  cut  up. 
Specially,  when  I  don't  know  what  they're  a-doing." 

"It  will  be  all  right,  Frau  Dobler,"  Edwards  an- 
swered. He  did  not  remember  the  woman  in  the  least. 
"I  am  going  to  put  you  to  sleep.  You  won't  feel  any- 
thing. And  when  you  wake  up  the  cutting  will  be  all 
over." 

"And  you'll  stay  by  me  while  they're  cutting?  And 
till  I  wake  up?  Well,  then,  I  suppose  it  will  be  all 
right,  if  you  say  so.  No,  I  ain't  got  no  false  teeth. 
What?  Count?  One— two — three.  Like  that?  What 
a  funny  smell !  And  you  '11  be  there  while  they  're  sew- 
ing me  up  ?  Yes,  I  '11  count.  Four — five — six. ' ' 

Gradually  her  voice  trailed  off;  the  counting  grew 
slower  and  slower,  less  and  less  distinct.  She  began  to 
repeat  numbers,  to  make  mistakes. 

' '  Fifty-six — sixty-eight — sixty-eight — sixty-six ' ' 

Then  a  long  deep  breath,  and  the  voice  stopped. 

Edwards  was  lifting  the  eyelid  to  watch  the  reaction 
of  the  pupil,  when  he  heard  the  Professor  say — 

"Preposterous!  How  dare  you  bring  me  a  card  when 
I'm  beginning  an  operation?  She'll  have  to  wait.  I 
don't  care  who  she  is.  Get  out." 

The  servant  laid  the  card  on  a  corner  of  the  wash- 
stand  and  disappeared.  He  was  used  to  being  sworn  at 
by  Professor  Schroeder;  and  the  lady  had  given  him  a 
very  fat  tip. 


336      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

"Is  she  deep  enough  under?"  asked  the  Professor. 

Edwards  raised  the  eyelid  once  more,  and  bent  down 
to  catch  the  breathing  of  the  unconscious  woman. 

"I  think  so,  sir." 

The  Professor  took  up  his  scalpel. 

Twenty  minutes  passed  in  comparative  silence.  Then 
the  Professor  stepped  down  from  the  footstool  on  which 
he  had  been  standing  in  order  to  reach  the  patient.  He 
was  a  little  man. 

"Anesthetic  off!"  he  said. 

Edwards  lifted  the  mask  from  the  unconscious 
woman's  face. 

"Next  case." 

Professor  Schroeder  took  off  his  gloves  and  dipped  his 
hands  into  the  steaming  water.  As  he  did  so  he  glanced 
at  the  card  that  the  servant  had  laid  on  the  wash- 
stand. 

"No,  wait  a  moment,"  he  added;  "I'll  be  back  pres- 
ently." 

Edwards  busied  himself  with  the  woman.  The  as- 
sistant had  bandaged  her,  and  now  two  adjutants  lifted 
her  from  the  table  on  to  a  rolling  bed  that  stood  near. 
Edwards  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  it,  and  pushed  the 
woman's  straggling  hair  back  from  her  forehead,  dank 
with  heavy  perspiration. 

At  last  she  opened  her  eyes.  Her  head  rolled  from 
side  to  side.  He  smoothed  out  her  pillow,  laid  her  a 
little  lower  down,  and  buttoned  up  the  coarse  night- 
dress about  the  scraggy  neck.  Her  lips  moved ;  she  tried 
to  smile. 

"You're  there,"  she  murmured.  "I  am  glad.  You 
make  a  body  feel  so  safe. ' ' 

He  got  up  from  the  bed  to  straighten  out  the  blankets, 
and,  as  he  turned,  he  saw her. 

So  absorbed  had  he  been  that  he  had  not  heard  her 
come  in.  And  now  she  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  with 
little  John  beside  her. 

She  held  out  her  hands. 

"We  should  feel  safe  with  you  too,"  she  said.    "You 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      337 

give  so  freely  to  the  least  of  these.  Have  you  nothing 
left  for  us?" 

Edwards  hung  his  head.  He  was  encompassed  on 
every  side.  He  knew  that  there  was  no  escape.  And 
he  was  glad. 

"Edwards,"  said  the  voice  of  the  Herr  Professor,  who 
was  making  a  most  tremendous  noise  over  the  rewash- 
ing  of  his  hands,  ''we'll  take  that  other  Gastroenter- 
ostomia  at  once.  Perhaps  you'll  assist  me  this  time. 
I've  never  seen  you  work,  you  know.  Hurry  up  and 
wash. ' ' 

"But  I  can't,  sir,"  Edwards  answered.  "Just  now, 
I'm  afraid  that  I— that  I 

"Nonsense,"  interposed  the  Professor,  holding  high 
his  dripping  hands,  as  he  crossed  the  room  to  the  basin 
of  corrosive-sublimate  where  his  fresh  gloves  lay.  "^Why 
can 't  you  do  both  ? ' ' 

"Both?" 

The  old  man's  keen  eyes  rested  for  a  moment  on 
mother  and  son.  Then  they  took  in  the  whole  Clinic  in 
one  sweeping  glance. 

"Yes,  lieber  Herr  Kollega, — both.  And  one  all  the 
better  for  the  other." 

The  woman  on  the  bed,  still  under  the  influence  of 
the  anaesthetic,  opened  her  eyes  again,  looked  about  her, 
and  not  finding  what  she  sought,  stretched  out  her  trem- 
bling hand. 

Little  John  tugged  gently  at  Edwards'  sleeve. 

"She  wants  your  hand,"  he  said. 

And  Edwards  slipped  his  left  hand  into  the  grasp  of 
the  sick  woman's  faltering  fingers. 

His  right  hand  was  no  longer  his  to  give. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

THREE  years  had  passed.  Father  Mathias  was  riding 
along  the  winding  road  that  leads  up  from  the  plain  to 
the  castle  of  ' '  Lebensegg. "  The  Biirgermeister 's  old 
white  horse  that  he  bestrode  was  a  little  more  over  in 
the  knees ;  his  own  black  straw  hat  was  a  little  shabbier ; 
his  long  hair  a  little  grayer;  himself  a  little  fatter. 
That  was  all. 

It  was  a  warm  April  afternoon.  The  sun  had  been 
very  hot,  and  Father  Mathias  was  glad  of  the  thick 
shade  that  covered  the  last  part  of  his  long  ride.  This 
was  his  first  visit  of  the  year.  The  road  had  been  too 
bad  hitherto.  And  he  had  been  down  with  his  gout. 
The  old  Benefiziat  was  dead;  he  had  a  curate  now, — a 
very  correct  and  pious  young  man,  sent  by  the  Prince- 
Bishop,  and  highly  approved  of  by  His  Grace. 

Father  Mathias'  approval  was  not  so  absolute.  How- 
ever, that  was  a  detail. 

"I  hope  they  haven't  quite  spoilt  the  place,"  he  said 
to  himself.  "In  the  last  two  summers  they  did  more 
than  enough,  heaven  knows. — Well,  well. — I  suppose 
modern  plumbing  and  an  artistic  atmosphere  don't  go 
together  somehow.  I  didn't  mind  their  changing  the 
name  to  'Lebensegg,'  'Life's  Corner.'  The  corner  that 
you  turn  when  you  have  been  ill  and  have  made  up  your 
mind  not  to  go  any  farther  on  the  road  to  death.  Not 
bad.  But  then,  what  was  the  matter  with  '  Liebenegg '  ? 
'  Love  and  Life. '  You  can 't  have  one  without  the  other. ' ' 

He  took  out  his  worn  Breviary  and  began  to  say  a 
neglected  office  as  the  old  white  horse  climbed  the  hill. 

At  the  end  of  an  antiphon  he  closed  the  book  for  a 
moment. 

"I  suppose  they'll  want  me  to  say  mass  in  the  big 
courtyard  for  the  children.  Not  that  they  believe  a 

338 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      339 

iword  of  it.  The  heathen !  May  the  Saints  protect  them 
both. — But  they  conform.  I  like  that.  So  do  our  peo- 
ple. And  after  all,  whether  it's  a  sacrifice  of  God's 
Body  and  Blood  or  of  pure  Bread  and  Wine,  it's  our 
common  oifering-up  of  Life  to  the  greater  Life  around 
us,  so  that  our  Life  may  be  given  back  to  us  stronger 

and  more  worth  the  living. Now  I  wonder  what  the 

Prince-Bishop  of  Brixen  would  say  to  that."  He 
chuckled.  "Better  not  ask  him,  Father  Mathias. 
You're  too  old  to  be  burned.  Though  you'd  make  a 
fine  fire." 

He  finished  his  office  and  tucked  the  book  under  his 
arm. 

He  was  at  the  top  of  the  hill  now.  The  old  stone 
portal  stood  there  unchanged.  And  through  it  the 
priest  rode  slowly  into  the  wide  green  courtyard. 

Whatever  alterations  had  been  wrought  elsewhere, 
they  were  not  apparent  here.  The  two  round  towers 
still  rose  majestically  above  the  trees.  From  one  of 
them  flew  the  black-and-gold  of  Austria ;  from  the  other 
what  seemed  to  the  priest's  weak  eyes  a  very  compli- 
cated banner  with  red-and-white  stripes.  There  was 
blue  somewhere  in  it  too. 

Over  the  great  expanse  of  green  turf,  bounded  on  the 
left  by  the  old  wall  that  rimmed  the  edge  of  the  rock, 
the  sun  shone,  and  shone,  and  shone. 

It  seemed  to  Father  Mathias  that  never  had  he  seen 
so  much  sunshine  before. 

In  the  corner  farthest  away  he  noticed  people  moving 
about.  He  shaded  his  dazzled  eyes.  There  were  long 
lines  of  white  beds.  There  were  parallel  bars  and  sev- 
eral other  kinds  of  gymnastic  apparatus.  And  among 
the  beds  and  across  the  grass,  on  the  bars,  the  trapezes, 
and  the  ladders,  there  swarmed  a  horde  of  quickly-mov- 
ing little  white  shapes. 

" They've  twice  as  many  this  year  as  last,"  he  said 
aloud.  "But,  bless  my  soul, — really, — they  are  very 
naked, — very ! ' ' 

The  sound  of  his  horse's  hoofs  had  brought  a  groom 
running.  A  red-headed  groom  in  very  baggy  breeches 


340      THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD 

and  very  shiny,  tight  leather  gaiters.  A  groom,  I  re- 
gret to  say,  with  a  cigarette  in  his  mouth.  As  he  saun- 
tered magnificently  forward  he  limped  a  little. 

"What's  doing?"  demanded  the  priest. 

The  small  groom  made  obeisance  and  stood  bare- 
headed. 

"It's  afternoon  'Visit,'  Hochwiirden.  Can't  you  see 
HIM?" 

"Him?" 

"Yes,  HIM."  It  was  a  personal  pronoun  of  Majesty. 
"And  the  Gracious  Lady,  too.  We've  got  'most  two 
hundred  now.  The  older  ones  have  to  go  to  school  iii 
the  morning.  Herr  Joncke  has  his  hands  full. — And 
there's  a  new  Herr  Doktor,  a  young  one,  with  a  fuzzy 
black  beard.  Looks  like  a  Jew.  Only  he  ain't.  He's 
a  lord  or  a  duke. — Fine,  Hochwiirden,  ain  't  it  ? " 

' '  And  the  young  master  ? ' ' 

"Coming  next  week  from  school  in  England.  A  big 
strong  fellow  he's  grown  to  be.  Last  summer  he  could 
swim  farther  'an  me.  He  could.  Let  me  take  your 
horse,  Hochwiirden.  They'll  be  through  in  a  minute 
now. ' ' 

But  Father  Mathias  did  not  seem  to  hear. 

His  eyes  were  following  a  figure  in  a  white  tunic,  ac- 
companied by  a  tall  woman,  whose  hair  made  a  golden 
aureole  about  her  as  she  lifted  her  head  and  smiled 
whenever  her  companion  turned  to  her  for  a  moment 
from  his  work.  And  wherever  the  white  figure  passed, 
a  child  here  and  there  would  slip  from  its  couch  or  leave 
its  play,  and  follow,  catching  at  the  edge  of  his  tunic 
or  holding  fast  to  one  of  his  hands,  until  he  laughingly 
pushed  them  all  aside  and  leaned  down  over  another 
bed. 

The  old  priest  took  off  his  blue  goggles  and  rubbed 
his  red-rimmed  eyes. 

"The  Good  Shepherd,"  he  said  aloud.  "The  Good 
Shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep. — And  as  long  as 
that's  true,  the  Christian  religion  isn't  quite  so  dead 
as  these  two  dear  people  are  pleased  to  believe.  It  will 
last  out  a  few  years  yet." 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD      341 

He  looked  down  at  the  little  groom. 

"Toni,"  he  said,  "how  did  it  go, — that  last  line  of 
yours  in  the  Passion-Play  ? ' ' 

The  little  groom  threw  away  his  cigarette. 

"And  so, "  he  said  slowly. 

Together  he  and  the  old  priest  signed  themselves  with 
the  cross,  from  forehead  to  breast,  from  shoulder  to 
shoulder — 

"And  so,  God  bless  us  all. — Amen." 

Then  taking  the  rusty  stirrup  in  his  hand,  he  helped 
the  priest  to  dismount. 


THE  END 


THERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY .FACILITY 


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